f • 


■M. 


'll 


•1 J,- 
I 

:i 



''••<4--tii.r.' 



# 

ill 


'll',-' 

'p 

^r* • - 

\ ?■ ’ 

V*' '* 

®t' 

. ii^'. 

f 

m, 

« 

'•’• r.r" 

4 

n> 

> *■' 1 

^T:: 


5 •■ 

.W^- 






'4Vdy ,;>' 

r ■•.' . 1 . •• r 


VAV’I 

V«’.' 

M y 1 
KjS'? 

yfe 

M ,\ v*i 

u' ‘ *• 

?'•)!; N 


'If 

j# 




i ( f' ‘{\i '.i»' ' 

4^ i’ 


'<f 1 •• * 


■ ^f.y 4 

1 <!'- • « ‘C\ 

i®;B 

if'SiSi 

‘M-: ^ «' '<* 

,iU:> 4\ I 'H 

yy-': t'i m '. 


■? ' i' 

4‘;-: 


M']fU 4- 
''*y.:u .i 

.'u ' V* * ' 

'ii4):‘<- 

V. / ' ' ',' 

-‘••/t * { ‘ 

r< iNv ^ 

'!■>'* 
•''#'Vx »‘/n 
{ .^ ' I ■'•' ‘ 

t\ }\ .«‘‘« 

^■i 'it' 


\ VtV 

'•Ay -x^'- 


i-;: 

\\\‘j 

:''7 

< *>< 

' t: 


'-'i ‘ N>1 

















\ 


/ 












&..„ 1 .« M 




V. 


*• 


* i»' 


» I 




I 


t 




BILLY-BOY 






BILLY-BOY 


I 





BILLY-BOY 


By MARY T. WAGGAMAN 

Author of “The Secret of Pocomoke,” etc. 


i 


NOTRE DAME. INDIANA 
The Ave Maria Press 


Copyright, 1912 
By D. E. HUDSON, C. S. C. 




CCI.A3143‘)5 

\ 



BILLY-BOY. 


I. — Miss Carmel. 

“Hurray! Whoop, hurray! Miss Carmel! 
Miss Carmel! Miss C-a-r-m-e-1 ! “ The 
clear boyish shout swelled in prolonged 
triumph through the beautiful shading 
oaks that girdled the quaint old home, 
on whose vine-\vreathed porch Miss 
Carmel Harrington was entertaining a 
lingering visitor. 

“What a regular war whoop!” said the 
gentleman, rather indignant at the inter- 
ruption. “Who is the young savage?” 

“ It is Billy-Boy, ” she answered, with 
a smile, — “little Billy Dayton. He is not 
usually so noisy, so there must be some- 
thing very exciting on his mind. ” 

There evidently was ; for another shout 
rent the air; and, with a leap over 
the hydrangeas, a slender boy of twelve 
landed at Miss Carmel’s feet. 

“I’m going. Miss Carmel! I’m going 
sure and certain! I’m going to-morrow 


2 


BILLY -BOY 


at six! Ticket is bought. Mother’s just 
packing my trunk. Got my slicker and 
sweater, and the greatest pair of yellow 
‘puttees’ you ever saw, and three cowboy 
shirts. It’s all right, though mother is 
scared sick about me. I’m going sure!” 

“Going where?” asked the 3^oung lady, 
breathlessly. 

“To Colorado — to Bar Cross Ranch — 
to Jack, ” replied Billy-Boy, in delighted 
crescendo. “There’s a weak spot in the 
corner of my lung, the doctor says; and 
I want latitude or altitude, or something 
you get in Colorado, to make me expand 
right. Goodness! I’m glad; aren’t you. 
Miss Carmel?” 

“Glad, Bill-Boy? — glad?” she repeated 
tremulously, — “glad that there is some- 
thing wrong with your lungs? Oh, no, 
no, no!” 

Mr. Page Ellis, who had risen to take 
leave, looked rather grimly at this young 
intruder upon a very pleasant interview. 

“ Really without claiming medical skill, 
I feel competent to disagree with any 
unfavorable diagnosis on this young 
man’s lungs, ” he said dryly. “ They seem 
decidedly ‘all right.’” 


BILLY -BOY 


3 


“ Oh, he did break through the ice last 
winter and had double pneumonia!” said 
Miss Carmel, anxiously. 

“That was it,” agreed Billy. “It was 
the ‘double’ business did it. My, but I’m 
in luck ! I never guessed when I was 
kicking against all that plastering and 
jacketing last winter that I was in for 
anything so jolly as this. I don’t expand 
right by two inches, the doctor says, — 
honest Injun, I don’t. Miss Carmel!” 
affirmed the speaker, catching the smile 
upon the young lady’s face. “Dolly, like 
a kitty-cat of a girl, said I was ‘just 
fooling’ to get out to Jack; but I wasn’t 
at all. Doctor MacVeigh measured me. 
‘ Now swell out for all you’re worth, young 
man,’ he said; and I did swell fair and 
square, and was two inches short. And 
mother said she had a grandfather or an 
uncle or somebody that died of consump- 
tion, and I shouldn’t wait another day, 
but must go right off to-morrow to Jack. 
She telegraphed him I was coming, and 
to lookout for me.” 

“O Billy dear, they must be anxious 
about you indeed!” answered the young 
lady. 


4 


BILLY -BOY 


“Nonsense!” said Mr. BHis, who had 
doubtless reasons of his own for finding 
Billy-Boy and his affairs most obnoxious 
just now. “A youngster can’t sneeze these 
days without being pounced upon by a 
specialist on lung trouble. He is a Dayton, 
you say?” Mr. BHis surveyed Billy-Boy’s 
slim, graceful little figure somewhat dis- 
approvingly. “Looks just as Jack did ten 
years ago. I suppose since then he, too, 
has ‘expanded.’” 

Mr. Bllis laughed a not very pleasant 
laugh; and, shaking hands with Miss 
Carmel, said he would come again when 
he could claim less distracted atten- 
tion. 

“I don’t like that man; do you. Miss 
Carmel?” said Billy-Boy, as the late 
visitor, in no very good humor, strode 
down the shaded garden path. 

“You must not ask such leading ques- 
tions, Billy,” laughed the lady. “And vre 
were a little rude, I’m afraid; but you- 
startled me so with your news. O Billy- 
Boy, I’ll miss you dreadfully, — dread- 
fully!” she repeated, seating herself on 
the broad steps of the piazza, while Billy 
ensconced himself comfortably at her 


BILLY -BOY 


5 


feet. “I don’t know how I shall get on 
without you.” 

“Then why don’t you come, too?” he 
said eagerly. “That would be grand. 
We’d have a crackerjack of a time, Miss 
Carmel. And, golly! Jack would be glad 
to see you.” 

“Do you think he really would, Billy?” 
There was a queer little catch in Miss 
Carmel’s voice. 

“Think! I know it!” answered Billy, 
<;!onfidently. “Why, he’d most jump out 
of his shoes, he’d be so delighted and 
surprised.” 

“I rather think he would,” said Miss 
Carmel, with a soft, tremulous little laugh. 
'‘But — but I’m afraid I might be very 
much in the way, and perhaps spoil all 
your fun.” 

“Oh, no, you wouldn’t!” replied Billy, 
with decision. “Some girls might, but 
you’re not that kind. Now, I wouldn’t 
have Dolly around a ranch for anything, 
she is such a fraid-cat. Why, if she saw 
an Indian or a panther, or anything 
exciting, she would nearly drop dead. 
And mother is most as bad. She doesn’t 
even know which end of a gun goes off. 


6 


BILLY -BOY 


But you — you’ve got ‘sand.’ I like 
girls with sand, and so does Jack. You 
wouldn’t mind riding over the mountains, 
and making coffee and camp fires, and 
climbing and hunting and fishing.” 

“Oh, no, Billy-Boy, I shouldn’t mind!” 
And again Miss Carmel laughed that low, 
tremulous laugh that was like the twitter 
of a bird. “I’d love it all, — the wide 
open under the skies and the stars, the 
heights and the depths, and the free sweep 
of the mountain wind, and the roar of 
the mountain storm. But how did you 
guess I was that kind of a girl, you wise 
little Billy-Boy! Don’t I look tame?” 

“No-o-o,” answered Billy, with long 
drawn-out earnestness, “not a bit! Dolly 
is tame, and Aunt Lou, and Miss van 
Doran; but you — you’re just grand. Miss 
Carmel! And Jack thinks so, too. He 
had a picture of you, in your white com- 
mencement dress, packed in his trunk. 
I saw it. I said it wasn’t as pretty as you 
were; and he said, ‘“Pretty” isn’t the 
word, Billy; try another.’ Then I said, 
‘beautiful,’ and he laughed. That was a 
bit nearer. And I said you were ‘just 
grand, anyhow.’ And Jack said I had 


BILLY -BOY 


7 


struck it right at last. And you are just 
the grandest girl I know, and Jack is 
the grandest brother. It has been three 
years since he went away, but I’ve never 
forgotten what a bully brother Jack was. 
Have you. Miss Carmel?” 

“No, I haven’t forgotten, Billy,” was 
the low answer. 

“Golly, he was great!” continued Billy, 
hugging his knees, while his brown eyes 
grew reminiscently soft and tender. “I 
don’t think there ever was a nicer brother 
than Jack. He used to whirl me out of 
bed at night, and pitch pillows at me; 
and sneak me cakes and apples when I 
was sick and mother wouldn’t give me 
anything but soup. And I’d never have 
learned to swim if Jack hadn’t taken me 
off to the creek and pitched me in and 
nearly drowned me. And he stole me off 
to his room one night and cut off all my 
curls; he said he wouldn’t have the other 
fellows calling his brother a ‘sissy girl.’ 
Mamma and Dolly were mad, you bet! 
They wouldn’t speak to Jack for a week 
for spoiling my looks. I couldn’t wear 
velvet jackets and lace collars any more 
after that, but had to be a real boy, and 


8 


BILLY -BOY 


not little Lord Somebody out of a story- 
book. My, I was glad; for I hated long 
curls and lace collars. And, then, the day 
Joe Slevin took my sled rope, I hollered 
to Jack, who was coming up the hill, to 
make Joe give it back to me. And when 
Joe wouldn’t, Jack just looked at us both 
and said, ‘It’s an even match, so I can’t 
take a hand. Stand up for yourself, 
Billy-Boy, and fight it out with Joe.’ 
And I fought for that rope and I 
got it!” 

“I remember,” laughed Miss Carmel. 
‘‘Jack brought you home with a black 
eye and a bloody nose, that almost sent 
your poor mother into a fainting fit. I 
suppose he thought that was the way to 
make a man of you, Billy.” 

“Yes,” answered Billy. ‘‘ That was what 
he said when mamma scolded and cried. 
‘You don’t want to keep Billy a baby 
forever. Since father is gone, it’s up to 
me to make a man of him.’ And when he 
went away he shook hands hard with me, 
just like men do,” added Billy, proudly; 
“and he said: ‘Don’t let them make a 
mollycoddle of you while I am gone, 
Billy. Grow up a man.’ That’s what I 


BILLY -BOY 


9 


want to do, Miss Carmel, — to grow up 
a man just like Jack.” 

“Don’t be in too great a hurry about 
it,” said the young lady, softly. “There’s 
plenty of time. You are very nice as you 
are, Billy-Boy.” 

“Nice!” exclaimed Billy. “I don’t 
think Jack would want me to be just 
'nice,’ but I am afraid that is all I am. 
You see, I don’t have any other boys 
around to fight and tussle with. And 
mother is sort of scary; I don’t like to 
worry her and make her head ache; so 
I play checkers with Aunt Lou at night, 
and make caramels with Dolly, and read 
French fables with Miss van Doran, and 
do all those girlie-girl things that Jack 
hated. I’m afraid I’m growing up a molly- 
coddle just like Jack said.” And Billy’s 
tone sank as he spoke. 

“You a mollycoddle!” observed the 
young lady, warmly. “O Billy-Boy — you 
dear, true-hearted Billy-Boy, — ^no, no, no! 
I’d like to keep you just as you are forever; 
but I can’t, Billy. You’ll have to grow up, 
like everybody else, into a big, strong, 
selfish, forgetful man. But don’t forget 
too soon. You’ll write to me sometimes. 


lO 


BILLY-BOY 


won’t you? You needn’t bother about 
pen and ink: any old pencil scratch will 
do. Just scribble away and tell me every- 
thing. And I’ll write back all the home 
news, and keep my eyes and ears open 
for everything that you will want to hear. 
Is that a bargain, Billy-Boy?” 

“Yes, you bet it is!” said Billy, eagerly. 
“I’ll have to write carefully to mamma, 
she worries so about bad spelling; but 
you won’t mind. Miss Carmel?” 

“Not a bit. Now I have to go and dress 
for dinner. But this isn’t ‘good-bye.’ I’ll 
be down to the station to-morrow to see 
you off.” 

“All right!” said Billy. “And bring 
Leo and Towser with you, Miss Carmel. 
Dogs make things kind of cheerful. They 
are doing so much crying at home that 
it’s sort of catching. You’d think I was 
never coming back, to hear Dolly sniffling. 
It sort of spoils a fellow’s fun,” added 
Billy, in an aggrieved tone. 

“Of course it does,” answered Miss 
Carmel, sympathetically. “But don’t worry. 
I’ll be down to cheer you off.” 

And cheer was surely needed next 
evening; for it was a doleful crowd that 


BILLY -BOY 


II 


gathered around the young traveller at 
Holmhurst station. There was mamma, 
tearful and tremulous; and fifteen-year- 
old Dolly, sobbing openly; Aunt Lou, 
armed with a vinaigrette for possible 
faints; and Miss van Doran, a very 
Cassandra of dismal forebodings. Even 
Uncle Martin, who was to go as far as 
New York with Billy, was not the sort 
of uncle to relieve the situation; but 
was thin and pale and dyspeptic, and had 
the general air of a funeral director as 
he checked Billy’s baggage and saw that 
his ticket was straight through without 
return. 

It took all Billy’s pluck to choke down,, 
as Jack’s brother should, the lump that 
would rise in his throat, steady his quiver- 
ing lips, and wink back the dimness 
gathering in his eyes. But just as he felt 
that the breakdown was inevitable, Leo 
and Towser came leaping and barking 
in high glee down the road; and behind 
them Miss Carmel in her prettiest rose- 
wreathed hat, with a gay little box of 
homemade “fudge” and a bag of home- 
made cookies, and a bundle of funny 
papers tied with red ribbon; and a pocket 


12 


BILLY -BOY 


kodak, of which no one else had thought, 
to snap pictures along the way. There 
were so many beautiful things to be seen, 
as Miss Carmel declared to mamma; and 
Billy would enjoy bringing back pictures 
of them to show to everybody. And 
it was the loveliest time of year to travel; 
and Billy was in such luck to have this 
grand trip, and travelling was “such fun” ! 

How.the sweet chatter chirked up Billy, 
and steadied his lips, and scattered the 
mist from his eyes! And when the last 
dread minute of parting came, and the 
great train puffed shrieking and clanging 
up the track, Leo and Towser got up such 
a diversion, by plunging forward and 
barking wild defiance at the locomotive, 
that, in the excitement of keeping them 
from utter extinction under the cow- 
catcher, mamma was too frightened to 
faint, and Aunt Lou dropped her vinai- 
grette, and Uncle Martin lost his spectacles; 
and Billy-Boy was somehow torn from 
the scene by a brakeman, and before 
he quite knew it was off to join his 
brother Jack. 


BILLY -BOY 


13 


II. — A Long Journey. 

It was a long journey: three days and 
four nights. And, in this twentieth 
century of ours, a journey that takes 
three days and four nights means a leap 
across the map that quite outstrips the 
jumping genii we used to read about in 
the Arabian Nights tales. 

Uncle Martin was not a cheerful trav- 
elling companion; but when he left Billy 
in New York, after solemnly consigning 
him to the care of the porter and con- 
ductor, the young traveller felt that the 
last tie was indeed broken ; and he 
watched the bent shoulders and grizzled 
head disappear in the distance, with an 
odd little chill in his heart that recalled 
that other moment when Jack pitched 
him into the creek to sink or swim six 
years ago. And if, when he was boxed 
and curtained in his sleeper that night 
by the friendly porter, Billy’s pillow was 
damp with boyish tears — well, it didn’t 
matter: there was only his good angel 
to see. 


14 


BILLY -BOY 


It was a long journey, indeed, for a 
fellow who had never been even to 
boarding-school, and whose pretty room, 
with its brass bed and ruffled curtains, 
opened right into mamma’s. It was “a 
mollycoddle’s” room, Billy knew; and 
he would have much preferred a big, 
raftered attic, like Dick Fealy’s, where 
he could pin up queer bugs and beetles, 
and have pictures of the football teams 
on the walls, and a stuffed owl on the 
mantel. But mamma would not have 
liked this at all; and, since mamma 
was his lady and queen, Billy-Boy had 
loyally submitted to the brass bed and 
ruffled curtains. 

But the pretty home nest seemed very 
sweet and dear to-night, as he felt himself 
whirling away through wide, starlit 
spaces, farther and farther from its tender 
shelter, farther and farther each moment 
from mamma’s watchful eyes and loving 
care; and from Dolly, who had suddenly 
developed into the dearest of sisters ; 
farther from Aunt Lou and Miss van 
Doran, and dear, darling, lovely Miss 
Carmel. 

Miss Carmel! Somehow, at the remem- 


BILLY-BOY 


15 


brance of the gay, smiling face under the 
rose-wreathed hat, Billy’s spirits revived. 
Miss Carmel had thought the trip such 
fun, and Billy the luckiest fellow in the 
world to have the chance to go. Miss 
Carmel had come, laughing, to see him 
off. If Miss Carmel could see him now — 
pooh! Billy gouged his brown knuckles 
grimly into his eyes, and reached for the 
box of “fudge” he had put under his 
pillow, took a big, luscious lump of 
comforting sweetness, and, forgetting his 
lonesomeness, dropped off at last into a 
restful sleep. 

When he woke next morning and 
found the sun winking cheerfully in his 
half -open eyes, and the grinning porter 
calling him to breakfast, things seemed 
much more cheerful, and Billy-Boy began 
to look about him with the wide-awake 
interest of a young American turned loose 
in a world of pleasant possibilities. 

There was breakfast, for instance, with 
one eye upon griddle-cakes and maple 
syrup and everything good, and the other 
upon the wide blue curve of the river over 
which the train was sweeping on an air- 
hung trestle; there was the pleasant chat 


i6 


BILLY-BOY 


with the friendly conductor, * who intro- 
duced Billy to the observation platform, 
where the young traveller stood for a 
delightful half hour watching the new 
wonders of mist-veiled mountains. There 
was the sudden rush and stop in some big 
town, with its brief exciting touch of 
busy life; and the quick flight again into 
lonely reaches of forest and valley. 

Then Billy, being rather a sociable 
little chap, found his fellow-travellers 
most interesting. There was a nice old 
lady, with white curls under a big black 
bonnet, who was going out to a son she 
had not seen for a dozen years. There 
was a stout, red-faced man, with a big 
diamond pin, who got a telegram at every 
station. There was a pale little fair-haired 
mother, with a cross baby that made the 
red-faced man swear under his breath. 
There was a colonel and a judge, and a 
nice old priest who was a missionary 
among the Indians. 

Before the first day was over, Billy 
had established friendly relations with 
everybody within his immediate reach. 
He had shut the windows, whose draught 
was too strong for the old lady’s rheumatic 


BILLY -BOY 


17 


shoulder; played “pat-a-cake” with the 
cross baby; found a lost notebook for 
the red-faced man; changed seats with 
the judge, who wanted to be near a friend; 
and warmed the old priest’s heart by his 
filial greeting of “Father.” 

He had learned that the nice old 
lady had doubts about getting on with 
“Jim’s wife”: she always “ suspicioned ”■ 
daughters-in-law. He had discovered that 
the red-faced man had a bay mare worth 
ten thousand dollars. He had heard all 
about the cross baby’s sick father at 
Silver City; and the judge’s youngster, — 
“just about your age, sonny; but a 
regular bucking broncho of a boy. He 
won’t stand bit or bridle, my Bob.” And 
then a long-limbed, grizzle-headed man, 
who had come into the car at the last 
station, and taken the seat beside Billy, 
chuckled grimly to himself as the judge 
turned away to have a smoke. 

“That’s a big brag, ain’t it?”, he said 
to Billy. 

“I — I don’t know,” was the hesitating 
answer. “I didn’t exactly understand.” 

“About that Bob of his being a bucking 
broncho that nobody can bust? I’d like 


i8 


BILLY -BOY 


to take a hand at him. He wouldn’t be 
too much fur me, you kin bet. Ez it is — 
well, he’s in good training for a halter-in 
of a lariat. There ain’t a bigger young 
devil west of the Rockies than that same 
Bob Bryce.” 

“You mean that he is a real bad boy?” 
Billy made a polite effort at understanding 
this new native tongue. 

“Bad!” echoed the other, turning a 
pair of keen blue eyes on his young neigh- 
bor. “Bad ain’t no name for Bob Bryce. 
He is mean, — ^rotten mean. I ain’t got 
nothing to say agin kicking colts. I was 
one myself; and I ain’t done kicking yet, 
if folks put the curb on me. But, young 
or old, I wasn’t never like Bob Bryce. 
You know him, sonny?” 

“No,” answered Billy. “I never heard 
of him before.” 

“Well, you don’t want to know him,” 
said the other, briefly. “He is the sort 
of boy to shy away from if ever he comes 
in your range.” 

“I guess he won’t,” replied Billy. “I’m 
going pretty far from — ^from everybody.” 

“How far?” asked his new friend, with 
interest. 


BILLY -BOY 


19 


“Coyote Creek,” answered Billy, always 
glad of a chance to be sociable. 

“Coyote!” echoed the other. “Whew, 
that is something of a jump from a 
Pullman palace car! So you’re going there? 
Who’s taking you?” 

“Nobody,” said Billy. “I am going out 
to my brother. He has a big ranch there.” 

“Your brother!” The big man stared 
at the young speaker. “You don’t ever 
mean Rackety Jack?” 

“No, I don’t,” said Billy, decidedly. 
“My brother’s name is Dayton — ^John 
Mallory Dayton. He is a gentleman,” 
continued Billy, feeling it necessary to 
emphasize the wide distinction between 
Mr. John Mallory Dayton, of Holmhurst, 
and any person called “Rackety Jack.” 

“Oh, he is?” said the other, with a low 
chuckle. “I beg pardon, sonny! Mr. John 
Mallory Dayton? It seems to me ez if I 
have heard that name before.” 

“I think you have,” said Billy, plunging 
cheerfully into family history, “dinged” 
into his head by Miss van Doran. “There 
have been John Mallory Daytons for two 
hundred years. One of them was a colonel 
in the Revolution; he got killed in the 


20 


BILLY -BOY 


battle of Brandywine; we have his coat 
at home, with a hole in the breast. And 
another was a governor; they’ve got his 
statue in the State House, and it would 
look just like Jack if it hadn’t long hair 
and a choking collar. There has been a 
lot of them. Jack — ^my brother Jack — is 
the last of them; for father died five 
years ago, when I was only seven.” 

“Tough luck!” said the big man, his 
voice a little gruff. “And so your brother 
is going to father you? Well, I jump off 
here, sonny; so it must be good-bye and 
good luck to you! But if — if — ” (the 
speaker hesitated) “you’re a long way 
from home; and if things shouldn’t go 
right with you, there’s my keeard. You 
can call for me.” 

He scribbled a name on the back of 
an envelope, handed it to Billy, gave him 
a parting grip, and then lightly vaulted 
from the moving train without even 
asking for a “slow up.” 

For a moment Billy could only stare 
after his late companion, in breathless 
amazement at this reckless mode of 
departure; then he glanced at the bit of 
paper in his hand. Scrawled in rude 


BILLY -BOY 


21 


chirography on it was the name “James 
J. Rainey, Grizzly Gulch, Wyoming”; 
and, pocketing this “keeard,” with his 
fingers still numb from the mighty hand 
shake of Mr. James J. Rainey, Billy felt 
with boyish instinct that the big brown 
man would be all that he had promised, — 
a friend in need and in deed. 

Altogether, it was a pleasant journey, 
this strong, swift sweep over a world 
thrilling with fresh new life. Billy was 
whirled through miles of waving wheat 
fields, that a dozen years ago had been 
wild, free wastes; through hustling towns, 
very little older than himself; over dizzy 
heights that the great-grandfather in 
the State House had publicly declared 
“eternally impassable.” He slept peace- 
fully as the train plunged through the 
mountain pass where the Indians had 
whooped defiance at the “pale-face” in 
his own father’s time; and dined on 
creamed chicken and lemon pie as it 
dashed on a slender trestle over the gorge, 
still held by the bear and the wild-cat. 

But three days and four nights even 
in a Pullman palace car make a twelve- 
year-old boy very restless, and anxious 


22 


BILLY -BOY 


to stretch his legs; and our Billy had been 
counting miles for three hours, and was 
quite ready when the conductor called: 

“Buckston! Your station, youngster! 
All off for Buckston!” 

Billy, who had spoken friendly good- 
byes to his fellow-travellers in time, made 
a quick scramble of all his small belong- 
ings, waved his hand in a final farewell, 
and sprang to the platform beside the 
road, where his neatly strapped trunk 
had just been shoved by a brisk baggage 
man; while the engine, pausing for only 
a pant and a shriek, swept off as if 
impatient of such unimportant delay; 
and, trailing a long streamer of smoke, 
vanished in the distance. 

Billy looked around him in dismay. 
This was scarcely the arrival he had 
expected. He had pictured a lively station, 
with Jack, behind a pair of mettlesome 
horses, eagerly awaiting him. He found 
that Buckston really consisted of a wooden 
shed, a row of abandoned cattle pens, and 
a telegraph pole. Wide fields of alfalfa 
stretched into the blue shadows of a 
mighty mountain that already screened 
the westering sun. 


BILLY -BOY 


23 


Billy tried the rude door of the station, 
only to find it locked. He thumped vigor- 
ously without reply. Happily unconscious 
of the fact that the late stop of the Limited 
had been an “accommodation,” granted 
at the anxious request of Uncle Martin, 
who did not know that Buckston had 
been blotted off the new railroad schedule 
in favor of a livelier rival twenty-five 
miles distant, Billy sat down on his trunk 
to wait. Jack would come in a few 
minutes, of course. Mamma had tele- 
graphed the exact train and time, and 
there could be no mistake. 

But, golly, it was lonely, — the loneliest 
place Billy had ever struck! A big black- 
winged bird wheeled in the clear blue sky 
above him; the smoke trail of the van- 
ished engine floated a grey cloud now in 
the golden air; otherwise there was no 
sign of life. Our young traveller kicked 
at the new sole leather on the sides of his 
trunk and whistled. If there was a little 
shake now and then in his whistle we can 
scarcely wonder; for the blue shadows 
of the great mountains were growing 
longer and deeper. Night was coning on; 
still there was no sign of Jack. 


24 


BILLY -BOY 


III. — Bar Cross Ranch. 

there!” Cub Connors threw his 
galloping pony back on its haunches 
as he reined up at the big porch of the 
Bar Cross Ranch, and flung a yellow 
envelope at the feet of a tall gaunt man 
who sat smoking in the sunset. “There’s 
another for you! Fifth in two days. 
Somebody must have money to burn 
at the other end of the line! I’d like 
to know what’s up.” 

The smoker, whose long, lean figure had 
gained him the sobriquet “Bony Ben,” 
reached down and picked up the telegram. 

“What’s the price?” he asked briefly. 

“Same as before — three dollars. It’s 
special delivery of twenty miles; and 
Dad ain’t sending me and Kicker up from 
Rooker’s for nothing. You ought to call 
a halt on that there lightning ticker in 
the East, or tell them to stretch a private 
line. But this time it’s ‘Reply.’ You can 
see it written on the envelope — ‘Reply.’ 
And I’m to wait for it,” continued Cub, 
relaxing into careless ease in his saddle; 


BILLY-BOY 


25 


while Kicker, having recovered balance 
and temper, began to nibble at the young 
cottonwood trees beside the road. 

“Ye’ll have a long wait, then. Cubby,” 
answered Bony Ben, calmly. “The boss 
ain’t home.” 

“He ain’t?” said Cub, who was a keen- 
eyed, freckle-nosed product of the advanc- 
ing frontier. “You mean to say that all 
them telly grams I’ve been shooting up 
here at three dollars a clip have been 
accumulating for his vise? You better 
get busy right now and see what’s up. 
Tellygrams flying like this mean business 
that can’t wait; and it’s ‘Reply’ this 
time, as I told you.” 

Bony Ben looked doubtfully at the 
sealed envelope. In the rude and simple 
ways he had trodden for five and forty 
years, a sealed paper was sacred. He had 
known men to be shot and hanged for 
tampering with such private and personal 
matters. Four telegrams lay already on 
the desk of the “boss,” awaiting his 
return. Ben could see to the sheep and 
the horses and the dogs; he could look 
after food and fodder and water; cow- 
boys and herders, even Chang, the Chinese 


26 


BILLY -BOY 


cook, moved to his word, and hesitated 
to rouse the lightning in his sunken eye; 
but there were limits even to the foreman’s 
responsibilities; and the boss — well, the 
boss went ways unknown and untravelled 
by Bony Ben, — ways where he had no 
right to “butt in.” 

“Burned if I’m going to meddle!” he 
said, with grim resolve. 

“Meddle!” echoed Cub, jerking Kicker 
away from the cottonwood, — “meddle 
with a tellygram! Why, you old moss- 
grown boulder, somebody has to meddle, 
and mighty quick at that. Don’t you see 
it says ‘Reply’?” 

“That’s straight. Bony!” A grizzled 
old man, who was seated on the porch 
step, his chin resting on his knotted stick, 
was roused into life and vigor. “Cub is 
too big for his breeches, I allow; but he 
is talking straight. That tellygram can’t 
wait another week for the boss to read 
it. You’d better bust it open and see 
what’s up. Or give it to me.” 

“Good for you. Daddy!” cheered Cub, 
as the old man took the envelope Ben 
handed him, and tore it open with his 
crooked, trembling fingers. “You ain’t 


BILLY-BOY 


27 

no moss-grown boulder, Daddy. Spit out 
the message! What’s up?” 

And slowly Daddy read: 

“‘Holmhurst, Del., September 20.’ 

“Holmhurst?” repeated Daddy. “Did 
you ever hear tell of Holmhurst, Bony?” 

“ Yes,” answered Bony, briefly. “ That’s 
where the boss hails from. The message 
is private and particular, as I knew.” 

“Oh, cut out the ‘Holmhurst’ and go 
on!” said Cub, impatiently. 

“‘To Mr. John M. Dayton, Bar Cross 
Ranch, Buckston, Colorado ’” 

“Buckston!” echoed Cub. “Buckston 
was cut off the map two weeks ago. Ain’t 
a breath of life left. Dead, buried, and 
forgotten. And the Easterners ain’t found 
it out yet! Go on. Daddy! Reckon that’s 
a notification that the Civil War is over 
and Abe Lincoln shot.” 

Heedless of Cub’s scoffing, the old man 
went on: 

“Have had no answer to telegrams. 
Very anxious. Billy will arrive at Bucks- 
ton by Western Limited, 3.30 Saturday, 
September 23. Be sure to meet train. 
Answer at once. 


Marian S. Dayton.” 


28 


BILLY -BOY 


“‘Billy’?” repeated Daddy, blinking at 
the paper he held at arm’s length to suit 
his failing sight. “Now, what sort of 
live stock do you suppose Billy can be?” 

“Burned if I know!” said Ben, gruffly. 

Heard something of a new trotter. There 
ain’t no telling what mark he’s going to 
shoot for next. But here he comes now 
to talk for himself, — and a crowd of 
galoots with him as usual!” added Bony 
Ben under his breath, as a clatter of 
hoofs and the sound of jovial voices came 
from the Gulch below, where the trail 
wound along the wild banks of Coyote 
Creek before it clambered up the sharp 
ridge of the Ranch. 

“Give me that telegram,” said Ben, 
taking it from Daddy’s hand. “And you 
wait here. Cub. You’ll get your reply 
now.” 

And the speaker rose to his full height, 
as half a dozen riders came laughing and 
shouting up the road; a handsome, dark- 
eyed young fellow of about five and 
twenty at their head. 

“Here we are, boys!” cried the leader, 
as they drew up under the cottonwoods 
that girdled the long Ranch. “Spread out 


BILLY -BOY 


29 


as you please, and call for what you 
want. You know what Bar Cross is when 
its master is at home again. Don’t know 
why I show up at this old roost at all I 
I’d rather be anywhere else. — Halloo, Beni 
Steady on the job as ever, I see. Whoop 
up that slant-eyed Chincook, will you? 
Tell him there’s a bunch of us for dinner, 
and to put plenty of bottles to cool.” 

“I’d like to speak to you first,” said 
Ben, briefly. “ Cub Connors is waiting for 
an answer to this telegram.” 

“Oh, confound the telegrams!” said the 
master of Bar Cross, impatiently. “The 
moment I strike this place it’s like hitting 
a buzz saw.” 

And the speaker took the dispatch from 
Ben’s hand and cast a swift frowning 
glance at it. 

“Billy! Billy! Billy! Who — what? Surely 
not Billy-Boy! What does this mean, 
Ben?” 

“Burned if I know!” answered Ben. 
“There’s four more of them on yoiu* 
desk. Maybe they’ll tell you. They’ve 
been coming pretty regular at three 
dollars a head.” ^ 

“A telegram! What’s up? No bad news 


30 


BILLY -BOY 


I hope, Jack?” questioned Jack’s guests, 
who, having hurriedly dismounted, gath- 
ered around their host anxiously. 

“I can’t tell yet. I’m going to see,” 
was the answer; and the master of Bar 
Cross nervously disappeared in the house, 
leaving his friends to discuss the situation 
in guarded tones. 

“Somebody dead or dying maybe at 
home,” suggested a red-haired man, with 
a nod. 

“More likely a haul up from Head 
Centre. Rackety has been doing full 
justice to his name this last year, as I 
happen to know,” laughed another. 

“ How much was he out that poker 
game last night?” asked the first speaker. 

“He never tells,” replied a tall fellow 
known as Chips. “There’s no squeal in 
Rackety. Whatever happens, he’s grit 
straight through.” 

“Maybe,” said the red-haired man. 
“But there’s no grit can stand the grind 
he’s got agin now. Shouldn’t wonder, as 
Dick here says, if this telegram wasn’t 
a haul in from the other end of the line.” 

“Bah, no!” laughed Chips. “There’s 
only his mother, — one of those little lady 


BILLY -BOY 


31 


mothers that don’t guess things. If the 
old man was alive he’d pull in the reins 
with a jerk; but he died five or six years 
ago, and Rackety is, like the rest of us 
here in these Sunset Slopes, galloping free, 
with no one to haul him in.” 

Meanwhile the subject of this discussion 
was standing in the little room he called 
his “office,” but which was stacked with 
anything but ofiicial furniture. Boots, 
saddles, guns, foils were scattered around 
in picturesque confusion. Cards, sporting 
magazines; a brace of silver-mounted 
pistols, cigar boxes and pipes littered the 
desk, where the four telegrams had been 
deposited by Bony Ben under a big bit 
of gold-streaked quartz, that served as 
paperweight to the cumbrous collection of 
bills and receipts already gathered there. 

Mr. Jack Dayton snatched up one tele- 
gram after another, and glanced at each 
in growing dismay. 

“Billy-Boy!” he muttered, with an 
oath. “Billy-Boy coming! Good Heavens, 
what shall I do with him? Billy-Boy 
coming here to me, — a kid like little Billy ! 
I won’t have him. Here, Ben, mount 
quick and rush off a telegram to Rooker’s. 


32 


BILLY-BOY 


Pay double, treble price — anything for it. 
What a fool I am! It's too late: the boy 
is on his way. Buckston, 3.30! Why” 
(dark despair settled on the speaker’s 
countenance), “he must be there now!” 

“ Looks as if he might have been there 
for the last two hours,” said Ben, briefly. 
“And if it’s a boy, as you say, he must 
find it pretty lonesome. I was out there 
yesterday. Everything is cut out. Not 
even a yellow dog in sight. And” (he cast 
a glance at the fading sunset) “it’s grow- 
ing sort of late.” 

Billy-Boy’s brother ground out another 
oath between his set teeth. The picture 
of the little traveller sitting lonely in the 
gathering darkness was a maddening one. 
Of all places in the world to send Billy- 
Boy just now! What could his mother 
be thinking of? And then he remem^bered 
the part he had been playing for the 
last two years, — the false, deceptive letters 
he had written to that tender, loving, 
trusting mother, to that distant home. 
Billy had been sent out to the brother, 
the son of whom those letters spoke, — 
the brave, bold, loving, steady Jack 
Dayton, who had come out to Bar Cross 


BILLY -BOY 


33 


Ranch to take his father’s place, to do 
his father’s work, to guard the interests 
of his father’s widow and children. And 
Billy-Boy would find “Rackety Jack!” 

With another muttered oath. Jack tore 
the last telegram into bits and flung it 
from him. 

“It’s the dickens of a mess!” he blurted 
fiercely. “But we can’t leave the boy there 
alone all night. You — somebody must go 
for him. And all these fellows asked to 
make a howling, drinking week of it! To 
bring that soft-eyed kid here now!” 

“Whose kid is it?” asked Bony Ben, 
who always came to the front when his 
boss gave way like this. 

“My brother. Wor^e luck, my little 
brother, that has been sent out here for 
his health. He i; — let me see — some- 
where about twelve years old.” 

“Well,” said Bony Ben, with a chuckle, 
“you ain’t bothering about a twelve-year- 
old boy. What’s here to hurt him? Why, 
Cub Connors ain’t much older, and look 
at him! He can hold his own against any 
twenty-year-old galoot at his father’s 
store! I’ll go to Buckston for him, as you 
say; and then just let him tumble in and 


34 


BILLY -BOY 


take what comes. You don’t want to treat 
no boy of twelve like a sissy girl!” 

“No, I don’t suppose I do,” answered 
Ben’s boss, more calmly. “A boy of 
twelve! It’s hard to think of Billy as a 
big boy, he was such a soft-eyed little kid 
when I left home. But that was three 
years ago. • And what a three years it has 
been! A chap can go a long way to the 
devil in three years; can’t he, Ben?” 

“He can” answered Ben, grimly. “It 
don’t usually take that time. It depends 
whether you gallop or trot, and you’ve 
rather took to the gallop lately. I’ll allow. 
Things are going pretty bad here at Bar 
Cross Ranch, I must say. It don’t take 
no scholar to see that. You’ve sold off 
nigh all the good stock; and if the water 
tanks ain’t looked to pretty soon — ” 

“There! there!” interrupted Mr. Jack, 
impatiently. “It’s the old croak just as 
soon as I hit this confounded place. Let 
things go, if they must. I’ll even up some- 
how or sometime. One good run of luck, 
and I’ll fix up everything for you, Ben, — 
everything, old fellow! One good run of 
luck, and it’s bound to come, — ^bound 
to come!” 


BILLY-BOY 


35 


“Not when you run with galoots like 
them out there,” said Ben, as the sound 
of noisy laughter came from the porch 
without. “They’ll skin you neck and 
crop every time. But you ain’t going to 
listen to me, I know. The road is too 
rough for wheels: I’ll saddle Marquita, 
and he can ride her home. I’m going for 
the little boy.” 


36 


BILLY -BOY 


IV. — AivONK at Buckston. 

It had been a long wait for our young 
traveller. Billy had pulled out at least 
fifty times the pretty silver watch that 
had been his mother’s last Christmas 
present. Three forty, four, four twenty, 
four thirty, — the slender hands marked 
their rounds steadily, and still Jack did 
not come. Four forty! Billy found further 
whistling quite impossible. Something 
surely must be wrong. 

The sun was sinking lower and lower 
in the cleft of the mountain; and, save 
a swift- winged bird, skimming now and 
then in the boundless blue, there was not 
a living creature in sight. Billy pressed 
his lips tight together, and kicked harder 
on his new trunk. How very nice and 
neat and “homey” that trunk looked in 
these vast reaches of mountain and sky 
and alfalfa field, where, manfully striding 
his own possessions, he seemed facing the 
whole “wild West” alone! 

And that “wild West” had its terrors, 
as Billy, who had occasionally dipped 


BILLY -BOY 


37 


into its juvenile literature, knew. Indians, 
bad men, wild-cats, mountain lions, — 
all had figured in the tattered yellow- 
backed romances over which he had spent 
stolen, breathless hours in Dick Fealy’s 
attic. It would be most inspiring to brave 
these perils with Jack or some big-booted 
cowboy beside him; but alone, here in 
the gathering darkness! Billy felt a queer 
flutter under his breast-pocket, such as 
he had never, never felt before, — not even 
on the day when Jack had made him fight 
Joe Slevin. It was a sort of flutter that 
made him cold and weak. The sun was 
nearly down; the dark green of the alfalfa 
fields was changing to purple; soon it 
would be dark, and — and — Billy’s mind 
recoiled from further fancy. He could 
not think of being here in the dark alone. 

Oh, why did not Jack come? Maybe 
he was sick, hurt, dead! But no: that 
could not be. Some one would have tele- 
graphed. Not for one moment did doubt 
of that dear big brother enter into Billy- 
Boy’s loyal heart. Something or some- 
body else might be wrong or stupid, but 
Jack, the loved hero of all his boyish 
dreams, never! 


38 


BILLY -BOY 


He took another peep at his watch, 
and his lip quivered. Five fifteen! The 
cleft in the mountain was now ablaze with 
sunset splendor; the purple shadows on 
the wide field were deepening; there was 
a ripple in the alfalfa as the evening wind 
came whispering down from the heights. 
Pictures began to rise before our young 
traveller’s mind, — the cheery wood fire 
that crackled just at this hour in mamma’s 
pretty sitting-room ; the tea table with the 
pleasant glitter of silver visible through 
parted portieres; old Towser asleep on 
the bearskin rug before the fire, — the 
skin whose wearer papa had shot on this 
very ridge before even Jack was born. 
Billy chilled at the thought that another 
bearskin in its original form might have 
its flaming eyes upon him now. 

Oh, why had he ever left home? Why 
had he ever come to this lonely place to 
be expanded? Why did not Jack come? 
If he were only back home with Towser 
on the old bearskin, with mamma softly 
touching the piano in the gathering 
shadows, with Dolly doing her algebra 
under the library lamp across the hall, 
with the delicious fragrance of fresh-baked 


BILLY-BOY 


39 


biscuit — maybe hot gingerbread — stealing 
from the kitchen! A big lump seemed to 
rise in Billy-Boy’s throat. If he had been 
just a little younger, he felt he would have 
given up and let the tears come; but a 
boy almost in his teens — a boy big enough 
to travel West alone to his brother, a boy 
who had riding breeches, ‘putties,’ and 
an army blanket even now in his trunk — 
could not be mollycoddle enough to cry. 

So Billy swallowed the lump as best 
he could, and winked hard and fast at 
the darkening landscape; and thrust his 
hands resolutely into his reefer pockets, 
where he struck something Miss Carmel 
had slipped in just as they parted at the 
station. A lovely little Rosary of garnet 
and gold, — Miss Carmel’s own pretty 
Rosary; for she had had no time to buy 
him another, and he had seen it twined 
around her white wrists often in Sunday- 
school where she taught Billy’s class. 

Dear, sweet Miss Carmel, who knew 
how to stop catechism when fellows stam- 
mered over the “Eight Beatitudes,” and 
tell some pretty story, so she wouldn’t 
have to give bad marks. What was the 
story she had told them only a little while 


40 


BILLY -BOY 


ago, about people saying the Rosary while 
the soldiers fought against the Turks, 
and won a great battle that made all the 
Christian world rejoice? 

Billy couldn’t remember names or dates 
just now; but he felt that, while big 
boys might not cry, they had soldierly 
examples for praying under difficulties. So 
he proceeded to say his Rosary bravely, 
while the sun went down banked in 
clouds of gold and crimson, and the 
purple shadows on the alfalfa fields 
deepened, and the wind blew up so fresh 
that our little traveller had to button up 
his reefer close to his throat, and sit down 
behind the friendly shelter of his trunk 
to keep warm. 

“Hail Mary; Holy Mary,” went up 
the innocent petitions, as powerful now 
in all human need as when they turned 
back the infidel hordes of the Turk from 
Christian Europe long ago. And, soothed 
by the blessed monotone, Billy-Boy’s 
fears and doubts merged into a dreamy 
weariness. The fourth decade seemed to 
blend with his mother’s twilight music, 
with the cracking of the big hickory 
log on the home hearth, with the soft 


BILLY -BOY 


41 


breathing of old Towser on the bearskin 
rug, — and then all things vanished in 
happy unconsciousness, and the weary 
boy, his Rosary still twisted in his fingers, 
rolled over on the rough platform in the 
shelter of his trunk, sound asleep. 

The sky was a glory of stars when Bony 
Ben, on his favorite mount Boris, with 
the well-trained Marquita picking her 
dainty way down the mountain path 
in his leading, took the last lap in his 
twenty-mile ride from Cross Bar Ranch 
to Buckston. Though boys of twelve 
might be able to shift for themselves, 
according to Bony Ben’s notions, he was 
not without a certain amount of sympathy 
for the youthful “tenderfoot” left so late 
in the loneliness of a mountain pass, — 
for such Buckston had become since its 
official desertion. 

“It’s a shame somebody hadn’t sense 
enough to meet the boy! I guess Cub 
was right: I ought to have busted open 
them telly grams myself. But I never 
did like butting in on private business. 
Can’t tell what sort of dynamite you might 
hit, and the boss has taken to ways it 
ain’t safe to follow. Just letting himself 


42 


BILLY -BOY 


and Bar Cross Ranch go to the dogs as 
fast as they can go. Betting, drinking, 
gambling with the worst of the galoots 
that come streaking out here because it 
ain’t safe for them at home. Yes, he’s 
going the gait sure. And such high- 
stepping stock as he comes from, too. 
Looks a pity somebody couldn’t catch 
his bridle rein and haul him in. It would 
have to be a mighty gentle hand, or he’d 
rear and kick. This blooded stock is 
queer.” 

Ben now turned the curve of the Ridge 
and began his descent to the railroad. 
Presently he resumed his soliloquy: 

“There was that Arab devil Pancha 
at the Three Star Ranch. The boldest 
broncho buster daren’t tackle him when 
he tossed his head and rolled his fiery 
eyes ; and yet Miss Lucy, the boss’ sixteen- 
year-old daughter, could quiet him into 
a lamb with just a touch of her hand. 
Yes, blooded stock is queer. You never 
can tell how it’s going to round up. And 
bringing another youngster of the same 
sort out here now! Seems sort of a pity 
to toughen up such high-class stock. But 
it ain’t my lookout. 


BILLY-BOY 


43 


“ Here’s Buckston now, — dead enough, 
as Cub says ; and not a youngster in 
sight! Couldn’t expect any live boy to 
set roosting here nearly three hours,” 
continued Ben, as he guided Boris along 
the track. “I wonder where he has 
gone to? Halloo! here’s a trunk! And, 
Jehosaphat!” the speaker drew rein. “If 
that ain’t the chap behind it, fast asleep 1 
Halloo, there, youngster ! Wake up ! Don’t 
you hear me? Wake up!” 

There was no answer. The stentorian 
shout failed to disturb Billy’s slumber. 
He thought it was only the shriek of the 
steam engine as he had heard it these 
last few nights mingling with his dreams. 

With a sudden fear in his heart, Ben 
unlimbered his long legs from Boris, flung 
Marquita’s leading rein over her saddle, 
and strode forward to investigate. Billy’s 
cheek was pillowed in his arm; his cap 
had fallen off, and the short soft curls 
that, despite Jack’s early “barbering,” 
had never stiffened, fell in loose rings over 
his brow; his lips were parted in a happy 
smile; one brown stubby hand still held 
Miss Carmel’s Rosary. It was such a 
picture of boyish innocence as had never 


44 


BILLY-BOY 


met Bony Ben’s gaze before, and he 
stared at it in bewilderment. 

“Lands, if he ain’t sleeping here in the 
dark like a year-old baby ! And such 
a pretty chap, too — like Rackety Jack 
turned kid again. And, jingo, if he hasn’t 
been praying! There’s beads in his hand 
like — like hers!’’ 

An odd spasm of pain crossed his face; 
for long ago — very long ago, it seemed 
now to Bony Ben, — when he was a ruddy- 
cheeked, bright-eyed cowboy riding for 
an old Spanish ranchero, there had been 
a little dark-eyed Dolores living in an 
adobe house near the mission, who had 
won his big, brave heart. But her parents 
had frowned on the wild young Americano ; 
and Dolores, like the dutiful little Spanish 
daughter she was, had submitted to their 
will, until a quick fever seized her, and 
she knew that she was dying. Then she 
asked to see Ben just once more, to say 
“Good-bye.” Her little brother mounted 
a swift mustang and rode to find Ben. 
But he was far out on the range; and 
when he came, galloping his horse into 
a foam, it was too late: Dolores lay white 
and still, with the blessed candles burning 


BILLY-BOY 


45 


around her, and her Rosary clasped in 
her folded hands. It seemed to Ben that 
his youth and heart and hope had all died 
within him at the sight. He had asked 
for the Rosary; and, though he was an 
American and a “heretic,” the mother 
had given it to him, in pity for his grief. 
And he had kept it all these long, lonely, 
loveless years that had made him the 
gaunt and grim Bony Ben. 

So it was that now the sight of Miss 
Carmel’s Rosary made his heart stir with 
the old unforgotten pain. He bent over 
the little sleeper with a new softness in 
eye and tone. 

“Here, sonny! You can’t sleep here 
all night. Wake up!” 

He shook Billy’s shoulder gently, and 
the boy started up in wide-eyed fright. 

“Who — what — where am I?” he fal- 
tered, looking up at the tall stranger, and 
casting a bewildered glance around him. 

“There! there! Don’t be afraid, sonny. 
You’re all right now.” 

“Why — why, it’s night!” said Billy, 
sitting up and rubbing his eyes. “ I must 
have been asleep.” 

“Asleep!” chuckled Ben. “Well, I 


46 


BILLY -BOY 


thought I’d never get you awake. But 
this here mountain air does lull folks pow- 
erful at first. It’s a regular dope. After- 
ward they wake up,” he added grimly. 
“You’re Mr. Dayton’s brother, I take it. 
Well, he sent me after you. I’m his fore- 
man — Ben Morris. I’ve got a pony here 
to take you to Bar Cross Ranch. So jump 
up and let’s be off!” 

Billy, quite wide-awake now, jumped 
up gladly. 

“Oh, but I’m glad you’ve come! I 
thought I’d have to stay here all night.” 

“It looked rather like it, I must say,” 
answered Ben. “You see, your brother 
wasn’t home when the telly grams came, 
or I’d have been to meet you much 
earlier.” 

“ Is he home now? ” asked Billy. “ Then 
why — why didn’t he come himself? Is 
he sick or — or anything?” 

“Sick! No, child!” said Ben, promptly. 
“But he was sort of held up by a crowd 
of galoots that came to Bar Cross this 
evening, and he couldn’t leave.” 

“What are ‘galoots’?” asked Billy, 
with interest. 

The terse, grim reply that rose to Bony 


BILLY-BOY 


47 


Ben’s lips died there as he met the inno- 
cent gaze of the young questioner. There 
was another stir in the long-silent depths 
of this big man’s heart. He felt an 
increasing desire to yank this brown-eyed 
youngster on the next train, and ship 
him home C. O. D. But shipping kid 
brothers home was not a foreman’s 
business, so he answered: 

“‘Galoots’ is jest a name for folks you 
don’t care very much about; and a crowd 
of them happened to stray into Bar 
Cross to-night, so your brother couldn’t 
leave very well.’’ 

“Of course not,’’ assented Billy, cheer- 
fully. “It would not have been polite. 
But I didn’t know Jack had much com- 
pany at Bar Cross Ranch. I’m real glad. 
I like company, though I’d never be 
lonesome even in a place like this with 
Jack. My, but I want to see him. He 
is the only brother I have, you know; 
and I haven’t seen him for three years. 
It’s a great thing to have a big brother. 
Mother said she never would have let me 
come away out here to anybody else but 
Jack. It was a long distance to come 
alone, and I’ve never been away from 


48 


BILLY-BOY 


home before. I tell you I felt pretty 
homesick for a while this evening, when I 
was sitting here alone and it was getting 
dark. But I’m all right now,” concluded 
Billy, as he swung himself delightedly into 
Marquita’s saddle. “What are we going 
to do about my trunk here? You know 
I’ll need it.” 

“That’s true,” said Ben, who had been 
thinking — thinking very fast for him — 
during the last five minutes. “You see, 
I was so excited I clean forgot about 
your trunk. I rather guess it has some 
valuables in it, too.” 

“You bet it has!” replied Billy, em- 
phatically. “There’s an army blanket, 
and corduroy riding breeches, and a pair 
of ‘putties’ that cost five dollars; and 
mother’s picture in a silver frame for 
Jack, and a pair of slippers that Dolly 
worked for him in violets and roses. 
Uncle Martin told me the last thing to 
lookout sharp for my trunk when I got 
here.” 

“ We will,” said Bony Ben, with sudden 
resolution to keep Billy from Bar Cross 
Ranch and its company to-night, let what 
would come after. “It wouldn’t be safe 


BILLY-BOY 


49 


to leave that trunk here and ride off 
twenty miles. Like as not you’d never 
see it again,” continued Ben, ignoring the 
fact that nothing but crows and coyotes 
were likely to catch sight of Billy’s baggage 
in this lonely spot. “If you don’t want 
to lose that there trunk, we’d better bust 
open old Tony Tomkins’ shed and camp 
here until day.” 


50 


BILLY -BOY 


V. — A First Night. 

Camp here! “Camp”! The word sounded 
most inviting, especially from this big 
brown man, in whom Billy already felt 
instinctive confidence; for the appearance 
of Bony Ben, tall and gaunt in his loose 
flannel shirt, with pistols stuck in his 
leather belt, his general air of strength 
and assurance, made Buckston seem a 
very different place from what it had 
been an hour before. 

“But Jack!” interposed Billy, doubt- 
fully. “Jack won’t understand why I 
don’t come. He will be worried about me 
if I stay here.” 

Over Bony Ben’s bearded lips there 
flickered a grim smile which his companion 
did not observe; for Ben had seen the 
bottles the Chincook was cooling for the 
feast to-night, and knew that Jack was 
now far beyond all brotherly worry. And 
as the picture of the mad revel that was 
no doubt already in full swing at Bar 
Cross rose before him, his resolve strength- 
ened to keep this clear-eyed young “tender- 


BILLY-BOY 


51 


foot” out of it at least for to-night. 
To-morrow — well, Rackety Jack’s guests 
might scatter to-morrow, or at least be 
lying dull and stupid after their orgy. 

“Oh, your brother won’t mund!” he 
answered gruffly. “ He’ll think you went 
on to Rooker’s, and will expect you stay 
at Cub Connors’ till morning. Folks that 
come in the evening train most always 
do. This here ain’t the Bast, where you 
can count on just how folks are going to 
move. We jump rather livelier out here. 
Your brother won’t do any worrying if 
we don’t show up to-night. Besides, it’s 
a twenty-mile ride, and you’re cold and 
hungry.” 

“Can you get anything to eat here?” 
asked Billy, with interest. 

“We’ll make a try for it, anyhow,” 
said Ben, with a chuckle. “Just jump 
down again, and fling Marquita’s rein 
over that post there. She’ll stand! That 
filly’s got more sense than most women 
folks. I trained her myself, and she’ll 
stand anything. Now!” as Billy-Boy dis- 
mounted from Marquita and fastened her 
as Ben suggested. “ We’ll see if we can 
break in.” 


52 


BILLY -BOY 


And, to the dismay of our young trav- 
eller, unaccustomed to the free-and-easy 
methods of the West, Bony Ben put his 
shoulder against the rough door of the 
shed behind them, brought the leverage 
of his tall frame upon it, and it burst open 
under the pressure showing rather a roomy 
shelter within. The unceremonious intruder 
took a match box from his pocket and lit 
a big red signal lantern hanging to the 
wall. In its ruddy glow Billy-Boy saw a 
rough, low-roofed room, that had appar- 
ently served the triple purpose of store, 
post office, and station. There were a few 
straight-backed benches for waiting trav- 
ellers, three spittoons and a stove, a short 
counter with a few shelves behind it, 
some boxes and barrels, while a row of 
pigeonholes on one side was marked 
“Buckston Post Office.” 

“ Dead-and-gone, sure!” chuckled Ben, 
as he swung the lantern around for a 
full survey. ” Well, Buckston was never 
more than half alive, anyhow; and Tony 
Tomkins wasn’t the kind to keep it on 
the kick. Rather be up on the mountains 
herding sheep. Let’s see what he’s left 
behind in the way of provender. For I 


BILLY -BOY 


53 


reckon Tony calculates smuggling back 
here under cover when the snow falls. 
Here’s some bacon! That ain’t bad. And 
there’s meal, sugar, coffee, canned milk, 
crackers. Well, I guess we’ll be able to 
get up something to eat, sonny, if we can 
find anything to burn. Here’s a few old 
boxes. I’ll split them up, and we’ll make 
things hum.” 

And while Billy-Boy stared in bewil- 
dered dismay, wondering uneasily if he 
would not be held accessory to these 
burglarious proceedings, Ben filled the 
rusty stove with the broken boxes, applied 
a wisp of burning paper, and soon had a 
fire snapping and crackling into cheery 
blaze. 

Billy still looked on doubtfully. 

“The police would take us up for this 
at home,” he said. 

“Would they?” asked Bony Ben. 
“What for? We ain’t hurting anybody, 
and food and fodder is free for the taking 
out here, youngster. You can’t count 
altogether by dollars and cents in long 
stretches, like these mountains and 
prairies of ours. Don’t be afraid, sonny. 
Tony would make you and me welcome 


54 


BILLY -BOY 


to anything we find, just as I’d let him 
bust in my shack to-morrow for anything 
he happened to want. Of course if there 
were women folks it would be different: 
they mightn’t like meddling. But old 
mavericks like Tony and me don’t care 
a fig. Now you just sit down and watch 
me get supper.” 

Billy watched, and he was hungry 
enough to watch with interest. It was 
a very different performance from the 
kind that he had hitherto witnessed at 
home, when, perched on a corner of the 
kitchen table, with a shining array of 
pans and dishes around him, and all sorts 
of “sugar and spice and everything nice” 
within reach, he had watched Aunt Dinah 
concocting the cookies and crullers that 
make a boy’s mouth water. But this tall, 
rawboned Ben had ways of his own, that 
made Billy’s brown eyes open at the things 
he did to-night with an old coffeepot and 
a rusty frying-pan. Our young traveller 
could scarcely believe his eyes or nose or 
mouth when the rough shed began to fill 
with delicious odors of hot coffee and 
fried bacon; and Bony Ben “landed” a 
whole supper on a tin plate, filled a stone 


BILLY -BOY 


55 


mug with steaming milky coffee, drenched 
a big smoking flapjack with molasses, and 
told Billy to “pitch in.” 

As it had been at least seven hours since 
dinner, there was no need of a more 
formal invitation. Billy “pitched in” like 
the very hungry boy that he was; and 
never, never, not even with mamma’s 
beautiful silver wedding service glistening 
before him, and his own especial chris- 
tening fork and spoon at his plate, had 
a supper tasted so good. Dinah’s rice 
waffles and creamed chicken couldn’t 
touch it. When the second mug of coffee 
had been disposed of, and two, three, 
four flapjacks had vanished to the last 
crumb, Billy gave a sigh of supreme 
satisfaction. 

“Golly! that was a good supper, — a 
heap better than I got on the dining car 
last night, and they have a French cook 
and a kitchen full of everything. I peeped 
in yesterday. I got so tired staying in 
one car that I had to walk around.” 

“Had a long trip of it?” asked Ben, 
who, having swabbed out his kitchen 
utensils, stretched his long limbs before 
the fire, tilted his chair against the wall. 


56 


BILLY -BOY 


put his feet on the back of a bench, and 
proceeded to light the pipe he brought 
from his pocket. 

“Three days and three nights,” replied 
Billy; “and we came a whizzing, too. I 
hate to think how far I am from home.” 

Bony Ben did not like to think of it 
either, but he was too wise to say so. 

“Oh, you can whiz back again when 
you get ready!” he remarked. “Calculate 
to stay some time?” 

“I don’t know exactly. The doctor 
said he thought about six months of it 
would fix me up.” 

“Where do you want fixing?” asked 
Ben, briefly. 

“It’s my lungs,” replied Billy. “They 
don’t expand right. I had pneumonia 
last winter, and mother got worried be- 
cause I didn’t weigh as much as Jack did 
at my age, and she sent for the doctor.” 

“And he had to say something to earn 
his pay,” growled Ben. “Couldn’t you 
get fixed nearer home?” 

“Well, I suppose I could,” said Billy, 
thoughtfully. “But he knew all about 
Bar Cross Ranch and Jack, and said that 
was the best mother could do for me, — 


BILLY -BOY 


57 


to pack me right off to Jack. You see it 
isn’t every boy that has a big brother 
like Jack.” 

“Your mother must be rather an old 
lady, isn’t she?” queried Ben. 

“Mother old! — my mamma old!” re- 
peated Billy. “Why, no! She is just as 
young and pretty as she can be. She 
looks almost as young and pretty as Miss 
Carmel; only mamma wears black, and 
that makes her seem sort of solemn and 
sad.” 

“And she has only you two boys?” 
Ben had never before inquired into family 
matters, but his interest in this little 
stranger was deepening every moment. 

“ No: there’s Dolly (Dolly is my sister) ; 
and there’s Miss van Doran, our governess; 
and Aunt Lou.” 

And, once started on the home track, 
Billy proceeded to inform his new friend 
fully in family affairs. Before he was 
through. Bony Ben had learned all about 
the pretty Eastern home, the gentle 
widowed mother implicitly trusting her 
idolized son; he had heard all about the 
virtues and perfections of that big son and 
brother who was the manly hero of the 


58 


BILLY -BOY 


tender, loving hearts he had left behind. 
And as Ben listened to the artless nar- 
rative, and recalled the present owner of 
Bar Cross Ranch, a queer tightening came 
upon his throat and in his heart. 

“So you wanted to come out here from 
all that?” he asked curtly, as Billy con- 
cluded a description of Holmhurst, and 
the swing under the horse-chestnuts, and 
the tennis court that had been Jack’s 
pride, and the dogs that had been papa’s 
own. “Don’t tell me you were such a 
little goose as to want to come out here!” 

“Yes,” answered Billy, lifting his brown 
eyes to the speaker’s face, — “yes, I did, 
because — because — I was afraid that, 
being there just with ladies, without papa 
and Jack, I’d grow up a mollycoddle, soft 
and girly and easy like. Mother doesn’t 
like me to fight or get my clothes dirty 
or talk rough, and when you are the only 
boy at home and your mother is sad, you 
don’t want to worry her. Jack said when 
he shook hands good-bye: ‘Don’t let 
them make a mollycoddle of you, Billy. 
Remember a Dayton must be a man.’ 
That is the reason I am glad to come 
out here. I think it will make me a 


BILLY -BOY 


59 


man.” And there was a look in Billy’s 
face, as he said the word, that the old 
great-grandfather in State House Square 
would have liked to see. 

“So that’s what you’re after?” observed 
Bony Ben, with his deep chuckle. “ Well, 
sonny, I rather guess you’re in for the 
making one way or another out here. 
Sort of pity you didn’t let your mother 
hold the job till you were half a dozen 
years older. I’ve seen home-made men 
that were pretty hard to beat. Didn’t I 
hear you say something about having a 
blanket round?” 

“Yes: it’s in my trunk.” 

They went out on the platform, where 
Billy opened his trunk and brought out 
the army blanket; and Bony Ben caught 
glimpses of blouses and collars and all 
sorts of mother touches, that further 
stirred this big man’s heart. 

“I didn’t think I’d want it so soon,” 
said Billy, as he shook out the warm 
heavy folds. “It’s a dandy, isn’t it?” 

“Fine!” answered Ben. “No man could 
ask a better. Just roll up on that bench 
and go to sleep. I’m going to stretch my 
legs out here and finish my pipe.” 


6o 


BILLY -BOY 


And, as Billy was feeling sleepy enough 
to agree cheerfully to this proposition, the 
new friends parted with a cordial good- 
night, — Bony Ben tramping up and down 
the platform puffing vigorously at his pipe, 
as if it somewhat relieved his troubled 
thoughts, — thoughts that Billy-Boy had 
sent straying far from their usual prosaic 
ways to-night. And when he paused for 
a moment to peep in and see if the boy 
was comfortable, and descried Billy kneel- 
ing by the rough bench spread with the 
new blanket, saying his prayers, Ben 
turned away quickly, and hit back the 
rough word that rose by long custom to 
his lips, muttering only from the depths 
of his honest heart: 

“And he’s come to be made a man of 
here/ Thunderation ! I’ll stop the making 
if I can!” 


BILLY -BOY 


6i 


VI. — ^WiTH Brother Jack. 

It had been a wild night at Bar Cross 
Ranch. The Chincook had cooled bottles 
until there were no more left to cool ; 
and the uproarious merriment that always 
characterized the return of the master to 
his domain had not died away until the 
eastern sky had begun to flush with the 
dawn. But everything was Very quiet 
now, for it was nearly ten o’clock in the 
sun-bright day. 

The guests had staggered, or been con- 
veyed by the careful Chang, who had long 
practice in such matters, to their several 
rooms, where they were sleeping off the 
effects of their midnight revel; and the 
master of Bar Cross himself was just 
waking from an uneasy slumber, to a 
dulled sense of anxiety and remorse. He 
had lost at cards again, he remembered 
vaguely; lost to Chips and Sandy Nick 
as usual; lost how much he could not 
recall. And he had been over head in 
debt before this last night had added to 
the score. 


62 


BILLY -BOY 


And — and there was something else, 
too. What was it that had happened to 
madden him yesterday? Rackety Jack ran 
his trembling hands through his curling 
hair, that lay damp upon his brow, and 
tried to think. What new trouble was 
coming or had come? Something had 
made him rage and swear, he knew, — 
something that his befuddled brain re- 
fused to recall. He struck the gong that 
the wary Chang always provided for 
his master’s awakening; the almond-eyed 
Celestial had grown wise in “Amellican” 
ways, and kept out of reach the morning 
after a prolonged feast. Pedro, a light- 
footed Mexican boy, responded rather 
timidly to the summons. 

“Send Ben Morris up here,” said the 
master, curtly, in Spanish. 

''Si, senor,** answered Pedro. “I will 
at once, senor, — only he is not yet come 
back.” 

“Not come back?” echoed the gentle- 
man, irritably. “Where did he go this 
time of morning?” 

“ It was not this morning, but yesterday, 
senor,” replied Pedro. “ He has been gone 
all night.” 


BILLY -BOY 


63 


“All night!” thundered the master of 
Bar Cross. “What business had he to 
be away all night when I need him?” 

“It is what I do not know, senor,” 
said Pedro. “ He led Marquita over the 
creek before sundown, and — ah, gracias a 
Dios!"' (Pedro cast a relieved glance 
through the window.) “There he comes 
now. I will send him at once, senor.” 

And, glad to escape the rising storm, 
Pedro bounded lightly away, leaving his 
master to stare blankly at the road to 
which he had pointed, where Bony Ben, 
mounted on big Boris, was tranquilly 
approaching the Ranch, in apparent un- 
consciousness of any neglect of duty. 

But it was not his missing foreman 
that held Rackety Jack’s bloodshot gaze. 
Pretty Marquita was cantering easily at 
Big Ben’s side; and seated on the new 
army blanket that cushioned her saddle 
was a slender figure, alert with boyish 
grace, that made the watcher’s heart leap 
for a moment and then almost stand still. 
That fair young face! Those eyes, shining 
with love and trust! Those laughing lips! 
For an instant it seemed the ghost of 
his own early youth that confronted the 


64 


BILLY -BOY 


bewildered master of Bar Cross. And 
then remembrance burst upon him. 

Billy-Boy! It was Billy-Boy, whose 
coming his dulled memory could not 
recall! Billy-Boy, who had been sent in 
tender, loving trust to his care ! Billy-Boy, 
his innocent little brother, who was even 
now at the door! 

Rackety Jack, dull, dishevelled, blear- 
eyed, with every trace of his last night’s 
orgy still visible, reeled back with some 
blind effort to fly, to escape, or at least 
to prepare for the clear gaze of those 
boyish eyes. But it was too late. Even 
as he tried to stagger from his room, Billy- 
Boy’s voice was in his ear, Billy-Boy’s 
arms clasping him in a rapturous hug. 

“Jack! Jack! My own dear big brother 
Jack! I’m so glad to come to you! The 
boy at the door told us you were sick, and 
I just ran right up. Oh, I’ve got to hug 
you again, I’m so glad! But, Jack, you 
are sick indeed, — all weak and trem- 
bling!” And Billy’s joyful tone faltered 
into dismay as his brother sank down into 
a chair as if he had the ague. 

“Billy-Boy!” he cried huskily. “Billy- 
Boy! Is it Billy indeed? And such a tall 


BILLY-BOY 65 

big boy! Why, you’re not Billy-Boy any 
longer!” 

“ Oh, yes I am ! ” said Billy, eagerly. 
“I’m just the same, only a little bigger. 
But, O Jack, you’re sick, I know! You 
look sick. Your face is thin and your eyes 
all hollow. And you never wrote us a 
word about it because you knew mamma 
would worry. You dear old Jack, that 
was just like you! I’m so glad I came, so 
you won’t be here all alone. Please lie 
down again. You’re too sick to get up. 
Lie down and let me take care of you.” 

And Jack, who found walking a little 
difficult this morning, tottered, under 
Billy’s guidance, to the bed he had started 
from only a few moments before, and 
sank down with a groan among the dis- 
ordered pillows. 

“ If I had some cologne I’d bathe your 
head,” said Billy, looking around for 
that first aid to the injured in the old 
home life. 

Jack’s apartment, one must confess, 
was a startling contrast to the brass bed 
and ruffled curtains that his brother had 
so recently left. Its wild confusion of 
boots, blankets, and hastily discarded 


66 


BILLY -BOY 


garments bore witness to the strenuous 
character of ranch life. A brace of pistols 
was flung recklessly on the floor; a hope- 
less fracture in the mirror told of another 
“morning after,” when the master of Bar 
Cross had pitched a bootjack at Pedro’s 
head. There was nothing of the molly- 
coddle about this room, as Billy saw at 
first glance; and his heart warmed to the 
big brother enduring such discomforts. 

“Oh, don’t — don’t bother!” muttered 
Jack. “Send that Pedro up here again, 
and you run off and look at the horses. 
They’re fine; no better in the country. 
I can’t be civil just yet, Billy. My head 
is going like — like a mill wheel. Pedro! 
Where in thunder and lightning is that 
Dago Pedro?” And Jack started up and 
struck fiercely at the gong. 

Pedro appeared, to be greeted with a 
string of Spanish, which luckily Billy 
could not understand. It seemed vigorous 
and impressive language, however; for 
Pedro darted off like an arrow from a 
bow, to return in a moment with a waiter 
bearing bottles and glasses and ice, and 
the siphon of soda which Billy recognized 
as an appurtenance of the correct sick 


BILLY -BOY 


67 


room. Jack drank with the feverish gusto, 
of which Billy’s pneumonia had left him 
a vivid remembrance; and then, with 
another outburst of Spanish to his trem- 
bling attendant. Jack sank back among 
his pillows ; while Pedro set the tray 
aside and came to Billy. 

“The senor says you will go with me. 
It is his wish to sleep.” 

“ Oh, I don’t want to leave him here 
alone!” said Billy, in a troubled voice. 

“ It is the senor ’s wish to sleep,” 
repeated Pedro. “ We will go down to the 
corral, the stables — where you please.” 

Billy glanced with anxious, loving eyes 
at the worn, haggard face on the pillow. 
It was like Jack to send him off, — just 
like dear, brave Jack to want to suffer 
here alone. And, oh, how ill he looked! 
How thin and changed and almost old! 

The fever, or whatever it was, must have 
been on him long. And no one even to 
shake a pillow or straighten up his room! 
Billy, who remembered the dainty care 
that surrounded his double pneumonia, 
looked around him quite appalled. 

“ The little senor will come with me, ” 
said the soft-voiced Pedro. 


68 


BILLY -BOY 


“ No, ” answered Billy, firmly. “ I am 
going to stay here. I don’t want to look 
at any dogs or horses while my brother 
is sick like this. ” 

“The senor said he would break my 
neck if we did not get out, ” blurted Pedro, 
in his broken English. 

“Pooh!” said Billy. “People always 
talk like that when they are sick. I mean 
to stay and watch my sick brother. ” 

Pedro’s black eyes rested for a moment 
in perplexity on the young speaker; then, 
feeling that these Americanos were quite 
beyond comprehension, he stole swiftly 
away before the senor could arouse to 
more active indignation at this defiance 
of his commands. 

But the morning draught had done its 
work. Jack’s quivering nerves had been 
steadied; he was still young and strong 
enough to rally even after a wild night 
like the one he had just passed through; 
and, while Billy sat still and watchful 
by the window, his brother sank into a 
restful sleep. 

He awoke to a vague consciousness of 
soothing and comfort. He had been 
dreaming of home. (When had Rackety 


BILLY -BOY 


69 


Jack dreamed of home before?) He had 
thought himself back in the old sitting- 
room, the shadows of the elms flickering 
in the windows, his mother’s hand smooth- 
ing his hair; there was a light touch upon 
his still aching head; a faint, familiar 
fragrance breathed about him. (Billy had 
not been a mother’s boy for a dozen years 
without learning mother ways.) 

Jack’s half-open eyes looked around 
him in dull wonder. The wild confusion 
from which he had drifted off to sleep was 
gone; the room had been straightened 
by a deft young hand into comparative 
order. Billy had dived into the depths 
of his own trunk (which Bony Ben had 
found means to convey safely to Bar 
Cross Ranch), and brought out various 
personal belongings that he felt befitted 
a sick chamber. The stained and battered 
tops of bureau and washstand were cov- 
ered with spotless fringed towels; a sofa 
cushion (his last birthday present from 
Miss van Doran, with the Dayton coat of 
arms worked in elaborate and painstaking 
cross-stitch) softened the angular outlines 
of the mission rocker; the accumulation 
of pipes, papers, cigar boxes and bachelor 


70 


BILLY -BOY 


debris of every kind had been removed 
from the mantel, where now the sweet- 
faced mother smiled down from her silver 
frame upon her boys. 

And, having thus brought Jack’s neg- 
lected room into some semblance of 
invalid order, Billy had ensconced himself 
by his brother’s pillow and was softly 
bathing his feverish brow with Florida 
water, which mamma had provided for 
the headaches that still occasionally 
recalled his illness of last winter to. Billy’s 
memory. 

Jack lay still for a moment, his half- 
closed eyes taking in the situation; then 
he stretched out a trembling hand and 
clasped that other hand upon his brow. 

“Good,” he said in a low voice, — 
“almost as good as mother’s touch! 
Billy, I dreamed she was bathing my head 
on that old leather couch at home. And 
you have been poked up here with me all 
morning! I thought I told that fool of a 
Dago to take you out!” And the speaker’s 
voice, that had softened for a moment, 
was fiercely impatient now. 

“Oh, he wanted to,” answered Billy, 
“but I wouldn’t go! I couldn’t leave you 


BILLY -BOY 


71 


sick and alone, Jack. Don’t you ever have 
a doctor or a nurse or anybody when you 
are ill like this?” 

“When I’m ill like this!” repeated Jack, 
puzzled for a moment. ” Oh, of course I 
was pretty done up when you got here, 
Billy-Boy! But I’m better — nearly all 
right now. Had a bad night, you see; 
and — and — ” Jack found it difficult to 
explain his illness clearly, with Billy’s 
brown eyes fixed with such tender anxiety 
on his face. 

“Oh, you can’t be all right yet!” said 
Billy, decidedly. “You had a fever, and 
only two hours ago were so weak you 
couldn’t stand.” 

“Was I?” asked the invalid, with a 
forced laugh. “I do have little spells like 
that occasionally — ‘next morning.’ You 
have never heard of ‘next morning’ aches 
and shakes, have you, little Bill?” 

“No,” replied Billy, “I never have. 
Miss van Doran had second-day ague last 
spring, and she had a chill every other 
day at nine. My! she got so yellow and 
thin! I guess you have second-day ague 
too, Jack.” 

“No,” said Jack, with the same odd 


72 


BILLY-BOY 


laugh; “there is no second-day about 
mine, Billy: it’s straight on time. So 
old ‘Van’ is still hanging around Holm- 
hurst? She must be pretty well dried 
up. Come sit down here on the bed beside 
me, and tell me all the news from home.’’ 

“I don’t think you ought to talk,’’ said 
Billy, perching himself beside his brother, 
and surveying that idol anxiously. “You 
look as if you had fever yet. Jack.’’ 

“Oh, I haven’t any fever! I’m all right 
now, — ^right as a trivet, Billy-Boy. Do 
you think I look sick?’’ asked Jack, 
nervously. 

“Yes,’’ said honest Billy, emphati- 
cally, — “real down sick. Jack. Your face 
isn’t round any more, and there are great 
hollows under your eyes, and your mouth 
doesn’t laugh like it used to when you 
left home.’’ 

“I’m afraid it doesn’t,’’ answered Jack. 
“You see, we learn to laugh on the other 
side of our mouths out here. But don’t 
bother about me. Tell me about home, 
and why — what the — I mean how they 
came to send you out in such hot haste 
to my brotherly care.’’ 

“ There was a weak corner in my lungs, ’’ 


BILLY -BOY 


73 

said Billy. “Doctor MacVeigh said that 
I did not expand right.” 

“So that’s what you want, is it?” said 
Jack. “You are here for expansion? Well, 
it’s a good place to get it, Billy-Boy!” 

“That’s what mamma said,” continued 
Billy. “She told Doctor MacVeigh what 
a fine, healthy place Bar Cross was, and 
how big and strong and splendid you were. 
Jack; and he told her to send me right 
off to you. It would make a man of me, — 
a big splendid man just like you.” 


74 


BILLY -BOY 


VII. — Life at the Ranch. 

Jack repeated Billy’s words: “A big, 
strong, splendid man like you!” Then 
he addressed him: “O little brother, 
what a kid you are! But go on and tell 
me all the news.” And he lay in grim 
silence, while Billy, now in full conver- 
sational swing, went on. 

Jack learned that old Dobbin had died 
and mamma had sold the carriage; that 
Black Jim lived at Colonel Woodville’s 
now, and only came to “help” at Holm- 
hurst once a week; that Aunt Tou had 
given Dolly a fur coat because her old one 
had grown so shabby; that Mr. Moulton 
had bought the south lot where the straw- 
berries grew, to build a barn. Quite un- 
conscious of the painful note of economy 
that his “splendid big brother” caught 
in this narrative, Billy-Boy diverged from 
personal matters to tell of the new trolly 
line that would run by the elm grove, the 
new marble altar which some wealthy 
man had given to Father Tom’s little 
church, and of the new boy choir that 


BILLY -BOY 


75 


wore white surplices and sang on Sundays 
at High Mass. 

“Nobody dead or married since I left?" 
questioned Jack, suddenly rousing into 
interest. 

“Oh, yes!" answered Billy. “Old Mrs. 
Flynn that used to do our washing, and 
the Fealy baby that had spasms, and 
General Ellis that used to be pushed 
around in a chair, — they’re all dead. And 
Molly Fealy is married and has two babies, 
named Michael and Raphael. Miss Carmel 
was godmother to both." 

“Miss Carmel? Then she isn’t married 
yet?" 

“Miss Carmel married! Gee whiz, no! I 
hope she never will be. I’d just hate to 
see Miss Carmel married; wouldn’t you?" 

“Well, that depends," replied Jack, 
slowly. “I used to think several years 
ago that she would make as lovely a bride 
as you could see." 

“Oh, she would!" replied Billy, enthu- 
siastically. “She’d beat every other bride 
all to smithereens, you bet! She’s pretty 
enough, anyway; but if you’d get her up 
in a white veil and wreath like Molly 
Fealy’s, she’d look like an angel sure. 


76 


BILLY -BOY 


But I wouldn’t like to see it,” he went on, 
thoughtfully. “I’d rather have her stay 
just as she is, teaching Sunday-school, 
and fixing up the altar, and wearing her 
flower hats and pretty gowns every day. 
Oh, I wouldn’t like to see her married at 
all!” said Billy, decidedly. 

“Pretty hard hit, for one of your age!” 
laughed Jack dryly. “Any other fellows 
hanging around Harrington Hall?” 

“Oh, yes!” said Billy. “There are lots 
of people, and card parties and tea parties 
and riding parties. Miss Carmel has a grey 
horse all her own. That new man that has 
come to live at old General Bllis’ home 
goes riding with her nearly every day.” 

“You mean Page Ellis?” Jack started 
up on his pillow. “Page Ellis has come 
into his uncle’s estate of course, and it’s 
a round million if it’s a cent. And Page 
Ellis is — ^is — ” words seemed to fail Jack, 
but Billy concluded his sentence calmly: 

“At Miss Carmel’s all the time, and 
sending her roses and violets and candy. 
]\fy! it’s fine candy. Miss Carmel always 
saves some for me. But I don’t like him, 
all the same,” continued Billy, his brow 
darkening, — “I don’t like him a bit.” 


BILLY -BOY 


77 


“Neither do I, Billy,” said Jack. “He’s 
a snob and a prig — but, good gracious, 
what am I to fling stones at Page KHisl 
He’ll get there, you will see!” 

“Get where?” asked Billy, puzzled. 

“To the winning-post,” answered Jack. 
“But I forgot that you have never been 
to a race. O Billy-Boy, how much you 
have to see and to learn!” 

“Yes,” answered Billy-Boy. “And I’m 
going to see things now, you bet! Miss 
van Doran said that, even if I had to leave 
school for six months, a trip out here 
would be ‘most instructive.’ I’ve learned 
lots already from that nice Ben. He’ll 
teach me to ride any horse in the place. 
Oh, I’ll have a fine time, I know! And 
Miss Carmel gave me a kodak that will 
snap pictures of the place and people I 
see, to send home; and I promised to 
write home every week.” 

“Great guns!” ejaculated Jack, under 
his breath. “ Every week — ” 

“One week to mamma and the next to 
Miss Carmel,” continued Billy. “She said 
she wouldn’t mind bad spelling, so it 
won’t be hard to write to her. I have to 
be more particular with mamma, but Miss 


78 


BILLY -BOY 


Carmel said just scribble ahead any way, 
and tell her everything. And when I don’t 
have to stop for spelling, I can write real 
fast. I mean to start a letter to-day. 
They’ll want to know if I got here safe. 
And maybe I better not say I found you 
sick in bed.” 

“No, don’t — don’t!” said Jack, quickly. 
“ Don’t say anything about me, Billy. 
It would worry mother, you see; and 
I — I — well, when a fellow is so far away 
from home, there is no use in writing his 
troubles. Now run off, Billy. I’m going 
to get up and take a cold plunge, and — 
and I’ll be all right again. Go find Ben 
or Pedro to show you around until that 
Chincook of mine calls you to lunch. 
Or wait! I’ll call somebody to look after 
you.” 

Jack struck the gong nervously; and 
the light-footed Pedro appearing again, he 
gave Billy into his care. 

But as his young brother turned from 
the room. Jack fell back upon his pillow 
with a word it was well Billy did not 
hear, — a fierce, wicked word that voiced 
the fear, the perplexity, the remorse that 
this interview had awakened in his heart. 


BILLY -BOY 


79 


Billy-Boy here, to see, to know, and to 
tell everything! Billy- Boy here, with his 
kodak to snap pictures of the ruin and 
neglect at Bar Cross Ranch; with his busy 
pen to write everything to his mother! 
Billy here, with clear, boyish eyes to wit- 
ness, keen boyish ears to hear, innocent 
boyish soul to recoil from the wild, reckless 
scenes around him! Billy here, to find his 
idolized big brother transformed into 
“Rackety Jack”! 

“Another night like last with Billy in 
the house, and I’d be ruined forever. He’d 
catch onto things, I know. I must get 
these fellows off at any cost, and then — 
then — ’’ 

Jack did not stop to think further, but 
sprang up and made for the cold plunge 
that was to steady his shaken nerves. 

Meantime Billy, under the guidance of 
Pedro, was investigating with great 
interest his new home. To one fresh from 
the dainty order of Holmhurst, things 
did look rather rough and careless at Bar 
Cross. But Billy felt that perhaps broken 
window - panes, smoke - blackened walls, 
and battered furniture were necessary 
consequences of bachelor life. Pedro led 


8o 


BILLY -BOY 


through a wide hall, still bearing traces of 
last night’s revel; and out on a porch, 
one end of which had slumped down on 
its rotten timbers, and been propped up 
temporarily on the fallen trunk of a big 
cottonwood. Hurrying over this rickety 
support, Billy stumbled into a hammock 
swinging from the rafters above. 

“Look where you are going, will you?” 
The surly growl that greeted this accident 
was prefaced by an ugly oath that made 
Miss Carmel’s Sunday-school pupil start. 

“Oh, I — I beg pardon!” stammered 
Billy, as the occupant of the hammock, 
a big red-faced man, blinked at him 
angrily. “I didn’t see you.” 

“You didn’t, hey!” said the other, star- 
ing in his turn at the trig boyish figure. 
“Then you’d better keep your eyes 
skinned, if you don’t want trouble. What 
are you young rascals blundering around 
here for, anyway? Ready to pick my 
pocket. I’ll be bound!” 

Billy could only stand there quite dumb 
under these amazing questions. But Pedro 
burst into a flood of voluble Spanish, 
that made the red-faced man suddenly 
whirl around in his hammock and sit up. 


BILLY -BOY 


8r 


“George!” he muttered, “I clean forgot. 
So you’re Racket — I mean you’re the kid 
brother Dayton was looking for? It’s my 
turn to beg pardon now, youngster. But 
I was half asleep when you stumbled into 
me just now.” The speaker’s dull, watery 
eyes were inspecting Billy curiously. 
“ You’re — what’s the name? Dicky, Harry 
Dayton?” 

“I’m Billy,” was the answer; and there 
was a certain dignity in the boy’s tone, 
for the red-faced man was by no means 
to Billy’s liking, — “I’m William Corby 
Dayton.” 

“Shake hands then, Mr. William Corby 
Dayton!” said the other, with an odd 
laugh. 

“ I’m Nicholson Brett, your brother’s 
good friend and comrade for the last 
three years. I’m glad to meet you.” 

Billy shook hands, still conscious of a 
vague repulsion for this good friend and 
comrade, that the vigorous grip of the 
coarse heavy hand did not dispel. 

“You’re like Rack — I mean Jack,” 
continued Mr. Nicholson Brett, studying 
Billy; “or like he was in his angel days. 
And they’ve sent you out here for your 


82 


BILLY -BOY 


health? Well, it's a fine place. No better. 
It will build you up, make a man of 
you." 

“Yes, that was what the doctor said," 
answered Billy. “ But — but it hasn’t 
agreed so well with Jack. He doesn’t look 
as strong and big as he did when he left 
home." 

“He doesn’t?" said Mr. Brett, in 
assumed surprise. 

“No, he doesn’t," asserted Billy posi- 
tively. “It would worry mother dread- 
fully if she could see him. It’s the malaria 
he says. Malaria is a very bad thing to 
have." 

“It is indeed," said Mr. Brett. “And 
Jack has a little touch of it this fall, as 
you say; but he will shake it off. We all 
shake malaria off out here." 

“Do you?" asked Billy, in a relieved 
tone. “I’m glad to hear it. Miss 
van Doran, our governess, had it for a 
whole year before she could break it up. 
Is Jack often as sick as he was to-day?" 

“Sick as he was to-day?" repeated Mr. 
Brett, staring at the anxious youilg ques- 
tioner. “As he was to-day! Oh, yes! I 
see you found him sick this morning! I 


BILLY -BOY 


83 


see, — I see ! ” And again Jack’s good friend 
and comrade laughed his queer short 
laugh. “Well, yes; he has attacks like 
that pretty often. You see, when a Mlow 
goes it as hard as that brother of yours — ’’ 
Something in the gaze of the brown eyes 
fixed so seriously upon his face made the 
speaker suddenly pause. 

“Goes it hard? Do you mean that he 
works too hard?” asked Billy, gravely. 
“Oh, I’m afraid he does, and mamma is 
afraid of it too!” 

“She is?” observed Mr. Nicholson Brett. 
“Great guns!” 

“She lies awake at night, thinking what 
a hard time poor old Jack is having out 
here,” continued Billy, glancing at the 
broken porch and supporting cottonwood. 
“And if she knew he was sick like I found 
himt his morning — ” 

“Oh, I wouldn’t tell her!” interrupted 
Mr. Brett, quickly. “There’s no sort of 
use in blowing — I mean in worrying your 
mother about that. You’ll get over it 
yourself pretty soon, and not mind. Folks 
don’t mind things out here. Why, boy, 
you won’t know yourself in a couple of 
months, you’ll change so.” Mr. Brett 


84 


BILLY -BOY 


rose and clapped Billy heartily on the 
back. “Well make a man of you!” 

As the speaker strode off, the rotten 
porch shaking beneath his heavy tread, 
Pedro drew a queer hissing breath between 
his set teeth. With all his inexperience in 
the ways of the world, Billy was quick- 
witted enough to understand the signifi- 
cance of the sound. 

“You don’t like him?” he said, nodding 
toward the disappearing gentleman. 

‘'Like9'* repeated Pedro, emphatically. 
“No! no! no! Bad, much bad, verra bad 
man, — diabolo!'* concluded Pedro, with 
another hiss. 

“I don’t take much to him either,” 
said Billy, thoughtfully; “but if he’s 
Jack’s best friend — ” 

“Friend? No! no! no!” exclaimed 
Pedro, shaking his head with each nega- 
tive. “False, coward! Little senor, see! 
He pulled up a ragged shirt sleeve and 
showed his lean brown arm marked with 
a long red line. 

“Oh!” exclaimed Billy with wide-open 
eyes of dismay. “Who did it?” 

“He, he coward,” was the fierce answer, 
“with lash, like if Pedro was a dog!” 


BILLY -BOY 


85 


“And you didn’t hit back?” The spirit 
of his sturdy forefathers flashed from 
Billy’s brown eyes. 

“Hit back?” repeated Pedro, uncom- 
prehendingly. “Hit back is what I do 
not know. Some day, if he strike again, 
I keel him.” 

“Kill him!” said Billy, appalled. “But 
that would be murder!” 

“Yes, little senor,” replied Pedro, 
calmly; “I keel him — sometime.” 

“ But don’t you know it’s an awful sin 
even to think of killing anybody,” blurted 
out Billy. “And you’d get hanged besides.” 

“Yes, little senor, — yes,” answered 
Pedro, showing his white teeth in a 
friendly smile. 

And, feeling that it was quite impossible 
to impress either law or theology on this 
new companion, Billy tried to shake off 
the somewhat troubled doubts that were 
beginning to rise in his mind, and followed 
Pedro to the big corral to see the horses. 


86 


BILLY -BOY 


VIII. — Jack’s “Friknd and Comrade.” 

I’ve seen him!” Mr. Nicholson 
Brett stepped unceremoniously into the 
room where Jack was brushing his hair 
before the cracked mirror, and incidentally 
studying the hollows under his eyes. 
“I’ve seen the new arrival, Jack; and — ” 
Mr. Brett dropped on the couch, that 
creaked beneath his two hundred pounds, 
and laughed softly. 

“You mean Billy?” exclaimed Jack. 
“You’ve met him — already?” There was 
perceptible dismay in the speaker’s tone. 
“Nick, I hope you haven’t — you didn’t.” 

“No, I haven’t — I didn’t,” answered 
Mr. Brett, as his friend and comrade 
paused at the question. “After our first 
meeting, which was a little inopportune, 
he and that young Dago came stumbling 
over me in the hammock, and I greeted 
them with some vigorous English. After 
that first mistake, I caught on and was 
most correct in language and deportment. 
‘ Mr. William Corby Dayton’ (he gave me 
his whole patronymic) and I became quite 


BILLY -BOY 


87 


friendly and confidential. We discussed 
family affairs freely. It seems your 
mother — ” 

“Stop right there, please!" Jack 
Dayton wheeled from the mirror and 
showed a white tense face new to his 
comrade. “ We won’t speak of my mother, 
Brett. Billy is out here for his health, 
and I — we must make the best of it. It 
is confoundedly awkward, I confess, just 
now. He is a perfect innocent, as you 
have seen; and I can’t have him shocked 
and horrified by another night like the 
last. You’ll have to get the fellows away 
somehow until — until — -’’ 

“Until when?’’ asked Mr. Brett, fixing 
a hard, keen gaze upon the speaker’s face. 

“Until I can do something with Billy," 
was the desperate answer, — “get him off 
to school or a sanitarium, or any place 
except Bar Cross Ranch. They don’t guess 
at home how things are going on here; 
and I don’t dare tell them, but Billy will." 

Mr. Brett chuckled grimly under his 
sandy mustache. 

“ He is out for information on all points, 
as I can see. He is primed with a bulletin 
about your health now, Jack. Lookout 


.88 


BILLY -BOY 


that it doesn’t go off to-night, and rouse 
home folks into anxiety about your rapid 
decline. He wanted to know how many 
attacks like this you have a week.” 

“And — and you told him?” again Jack 
turned white and fierce upon the speaker. 

“Bah! I told him nothing. Do you 
take me for a fool? But” (the speaker’s 
voice grew hard and cold again) “you’re 
against a snag, Dayton, as I can see. 
Can’t you ship the kid home again on 
some excuse? Say smallpox or scarlet 
fever, or something killing, has broken out 
on the Ranch.” 

“No, I can’t,” answered Jack, briefly. 
^‘I’ve lied enough, but not like that. If 
you ever had a home or — or a mother 
like mine, you wouldn’t suggest such a 
thing. Billy has come West by the doctor’s 
order, and must stay. I’ll find some other 
place for him if I can. Meantime (it 
doesn’t sound very civil) but you and the 
boys will have to clear out. Take them 
off to Rooker’s or Lockwood’s.” 

“Better go easy on that, my boy!” 
said Brett, with an unpleasant laugh. 
“Do you know how many I. O. U.’s you 
passed over the table last night?” 


BILLY -BOY 


89 


“No, I don’t,” answered Jack, shortly. 

“Then you had better inquire before 
you break up this friendly little party, 
and let Chips ‘vamoose’ with the loot. 
It was his turn last night with a ven- 
geance. To-night it will be yours or mine. 
You know what you told me yesterday. 
You’ve got to win before that next note 
falls due, — ^got to win or Bar Cross is 
lost. These fellows have the stuff, as you 
know — are loaded down with it, — and 
you are going to throw up your chances 
with them for this candy kid of a boy!” 

“ I tell you I won’t have him hear or 
see the sort of thing we had last night, ” 
said Jack, with darkening brow and 
tightening lips, — “not for all that Bar 
Cross is worth. ” 

“ Then don’t let him hear or see it. 
Leave him here and you can come with 
us. I tell you it’s your chance, my boy, — 
the chance of your life I These fellows 
have the money to set you up, to square 
you forever. And if you break things up 
now — ” 

“I’ll miss it. ” Jack’s sunken eyes began 
to burn, his thin cheeks to flush fever- 
ishly. “I believe you’re right, Nick, — I 


90 


BILLY -BOY 


believe you’re right. Luck is bound to 
come, as you say. It always does if a 
fellow can hold his bluff long enough ! 
I would be a fool to break up the game 
now. I’ll leave Billy here and go with 
you to-night. ” 

“Good!” said Mr. Brett, rising. “I 
thought we could find some way to settle 
this kid business. I’ll fix it with the boys, 
and get them off quietly to Rooker’s; you 
and I will follow later; and Billy shall 
sleep the sleep of innocence undisturbed 
to-night. ” 

And Mr. Brett laughed the laugh Billy 
did not like, and turned from the room. 
He had gained his point, as he always 
did with “Rackety Jack”; and the light 
in his hard eyes was like the green gleam 
in a cat’s when its paw is on a mouse. 

Meantime Billy was making the rounds 
under Pedro’s guidance. He had seen the 
horses, the dogs, the cow sheds, the water 
tanks; he had stopped for a friendly chat 
with old Daddy mending a stirrup strap 
in the sunshine; he had called on Bony 
Ben in his own especial shack on the 
rough-beaten track that led to the gulch; 
he had peeped at Chang stewing prairie 


BILLY -BOY 


9J 

fowls in his adobe kitchen. It was all 
most interesting and instructive, as Miss 
van Doran had said; though there was 
much that Billy could not quite under- 
stand. The fences were down, and the 
water tanks empty and broken; the roof 
of the cow shed had fallen in; and the 
yard, that stretched down the slope of the 
hill, was choked with weeds, through which 
men as well as cattle had to beat their way. 

Long years ago mamma had made a 
summer trip to Bar Cross Ranch, and had 
such pretty memories of it, — ^the flowers, 
the trees; the great mountains, with their 
changing lights and shadows; the porch, 
with its gay awnings and Navajo rugs; 
the old Spanish cook Martina, who made 
such wonderful “dulces. ” Doubtless in 
those days papa had everything arranged 
for a lady’s pleasure; now there were no 
ladies here, and things were different. 
Men — “strong, splendid men” like Jack — 
did not bother about such niceties. So 
Billy explained to himself the perplexing 
conditions at Bar Cross in these latter 
days, and in his loyal young heart absolved 
Jack from all blame. 

And when, about two o’clock. Jack 


92 


BILLY -BOY 


called him in to lunch, Billy was ready 
to do full justice to the prairie chicken 
and baked potatoes and crisp brown 
biscuit that Chang served, with salaams, 
on a battered lacquer tray, for there was 
neither tablecloth nor napkins. The red- 
faced man of the hammock was the only 
guest; and he laughed and talked a great 
deal, and was very friendly, — ^so friendly 
that Billy found himself quite forgetting 
his first prejudice against Jack’s “friend 
and comrade, ” and chatting with him 
most pleasantly. Some one had to talk; 
for, after the two first mouthfuls, Jack 
pushed the prairie fowl away and sat 
moody and silent, while Mr. Brett and 
Billy kept up a cheerful conversation, 
about hunting and camping and moun- 
tain climbing, and all the novel delights 
that awaited youthful travellers in the 
untamed West. This new acquaintance 
had had wonderful experiences, that held 
his young listener breathless, — encounters 
with hostile Indians, hairbreadth escapes 
from bears and wild-cats; he had been 
caught in a cyclone, hemmed in by forest 
fires, lost in a blizzard; and had borne 
himself through all these mischances 


BILLY -BOY 


93 


with a reckless courage that put in the 
shade all the heroes of Dick Fealy’s book- 
shelf. Billy felt that if he could only go 
back to Holmhurst with some adventures 
like these, Dick Fealy and the other boys 
would stare indeed. 

“ Do these exciting things ever happen 
now?” asked Billy with interest. “I’d 
like something to happen while I am 
out here, — something real thrilling, that a 
fellow could remember always. Nothing 
ever happens at home — except Christmas 
and birthdays. Do you think if I stay 
out here six months — ” 

“That you will strike something excit- 
ing?” laughed Mr. Brett, casting an odd 
glance at his moody host. “I think it 
rather likely you will. Here! you are 
drinking too much of that coyote water, 
my boy! Let me color it a little for you.” 
And he poured something from the bottle 
beside him into Billy’s glass. 

“No!” thundered Jack, suddenly rising 
from his reverie, and sweeping the tumbler 
and its contents from the table with a 
strong fling of his arm. “Not a drop, 
Brett, — never a drop, Brett, while I’ve 
got hand or voice to stop it! That’s the 


94 


BILLY -BOY 


way you began with me. The coyote may 
run a little fishy, but stick to it, Billy! 
It won’t hurt you like — like that. Don’t 
try it on him, Brett! I won’t have it!” 
And Jack’s voice trembled strangely. 

“Just as you please, of course,” said 
Mr. Brett; and, though he laughed, the 
ugly gleam came into his eyes. “The 
coyote does not agree with everybody, as 
you know. But it really is none of my 
business.” And the speaker pushed his 
chair from the table and rose. “I’ll leave 
you to discuss family matters without me. 
You seem to be facing some knotty 
problems, I must say.” And, laughing 
again rather unpleasantly, Mr. Brett lit a 
cigar and slowly sauntered from the room. 

“You made him mad,” said Billy, — 
“real mad. Oh, I’m sorry. Jack!” 

“Why?” asked Jack, lapsing into in- 
difference again, as he leaned back in his 
chair and proceeded to roll a cigarette. 

“ Because — because he might hurt you 
somehow,” said Billy, drawing a long 
breath. “ He hurt Pedro, — cut his arm 
with a whip. And Pedro says people fight 
and shoot and kill each other out here. ” 

“So Pedro has been enlightening you?” 


BILLY -BOY 


95 

observed Jack, dryly. “I thought he was 
quite safe. ** 

“Oh, he is!“ answered Billy. “He took 
real good care of me, Jack, — wouldn’t let 
me go near Black Selim or Dandy Jim 
or any of the dangerous horses. I like 
Pedro very much, though I can’t under- 
stand him sometimes. I don’t understand 
lots of things out here. ’’ 

“Don’t try,” said his brother briefly. 
“There’s no use bothering your little 
head about my business, Billy. I’ll work 
out all right in a couple of months, and 
send mother a cheque that will buy her 
a new carriage and pair. Just now — well, 
just now I’m a little short, and Bar Cross 
isn’t in very good shape; but I’ll work 
out all right in a little while. I don’t 
like to worry home folks with my troubles 
especially women folks. They can’t under- 
stand, you know, Billy.” 

“No,” answered Billy. “If papa were 
alive it would be different.” 

“Very different!” assented Jack, with 
a grim, remorseful sense of the difference 
his honest, keen-eyed, strong-willed father 
would have made under the circumstances. 

“ I tell mamma everything, ” added Billy, 


96 


BILLY -BOY 


thoughtfully. “She said she hoped I 
always would do so.” 

“That’s all very well for a little boy,” 
replied Jack, feeling somehow as if he 
were tramping with muddy feet the 
white snow of untrodden paths. “But 
men can’t and don’t tell everything to 
their mothers, Billy, especially when they 
are thousands of miles away. So I hope 
you won’t write home that I’m sick or 
look bad, or — or anything unpleasant that 
would only worry her.” 

Billy thought for a moment as if taking 
in this view of the subject. 

“I won’t,” he answered gravely, — “I 
won’t write mamma anything that will 
worry her. She worries a lot about you 
now. She thinks you are working yourself 
to death out here, and that it must be 
so lonely and dull. And Dolly wanted to 
go to the Sacred Heart in Paris with 
Helen Robbins and Cora Vane; but 
mamma said we could not afford it, and 
that we must be willing to do without 
things when you were sacrificing your 
life for us. And I guess you are; for you 
look awfully tired and worried. Jack. You 
ought to go to bed, and drink milk 


BILLY -BOY 


97 


and chicken soup, and take a good 
rest.” 

“A rest!” repeated Jack, with a harsh 
laugh. “I don’t know what rest means. 
I haven’t known for more than two years, 
Billy. Rest! Why, if I should try to rest 
I’d go mad. There! — don’t open your 
big brown eyes at me like that. It will 
be all right in a little while, Billy; and 
Dolly will have her turn at the Sacred 
Heart with the other girls, and mother 
will have her carriage and pair, and there 
will be no more trouble or worry for any 
one. We’ll set up old Bar Cross on new 
legs again, and make things hum. Just you 
wait and see, Billy, — just wait and see!” 

Jack had filled his glass from the bottle 
Mr. Brett had left beside him, and tossed 
off the draught feverishly. As he filled 
it again, his good friend and comrade 
stalked into the room, and took up his 
hat and riding gloves from the chair where 
he had flung them before luncheon. 

” What ! ” said Jack. ” You’re not going, 
Nick?” 

“Yes,” answered Brett, shortly. ”I am 
rather one too m.any, it seems, just now.” 

” Not at all, my dear fellow, — not at 


98 


BILLY -BOY 


all! Don’t think of going without me. 
I’ll be with you in a moment. Bony Ben 
will look out for Billy while I am gone. 
You won’t mind my leaving you for 
to-night, Billy? I’ve got an engagement — 
a most important engagement — that I 
can’t break. I’ll be back soon, Billy; and 
we’ll have great times together, — the 
grandest sort of times, Billy-Boy!” 

And Jack slapped Billy on the shoulder 
in his own hearty style, and in another 
moment was hurrying off with his friend 
and comrade in the old implusive way. 

In the old way? Ah, no! Billy felt 
instinctively that there was a difference 
he could not explain or understand. As 
he stood at the Ranch window watching 
Jack and his best friend and comrade 
cantering away under the cottonwoods, 
there was a strange uneasiness in his 
boyish heart; though he little guessed 
that there was sad need just now for Miss 
Carmel’s Rosary, or that Jack was vent- 
uring among enemies as cruel and pitiless 
as those turbaned Turks of long ago. 


BILLY-BOY 


99 


IX. — Billy’s Letters. 

Miss Carmel had been busy all day, — 
so busy that Grey Eagle had been left in 
his stable to munch his oats, in comfort- 
able wonder why he was not taking his 
usual brisk canter over the breezy hills, 
where Mr. Page Ellis was riding alone in 
no very good humor. Piety is a very 
pretty thing in a woman, thought Mr. Ellis; 
but to spend a glorious afternoon like 
this dressing an altar in that poor 
little “Romish” church was carrying it 
too far. 

But Father Tom was to have the Forty 
Hours’ at St. Monica’s, and the “poor 
little church” had to be at its best; so 
Miss Carmel, who, with half a dozen of 
the Sunday-school class, formed the Sanc- 
tuary Society, had her pretty hands full 
of work. It was lovely at last, as they all 
agreed when they stood off in breathless 
delight to contemplate their finished work. 
Miss Carmel had gently and very tactfully 
put aside the red and yellow chrysan- 


lOO 


BILLY -BOY 


themums that had been heaped upon her 
from the village gardens; and the new 
altar, with its snowy blossoms and waxen 
tapers, stood fair and spotless in the sunset 
splendor streaming through the “memorial” 
window, that showed the patient mother- 
saint pleading for her wandering son. 

Miss Carmel knelt fox a moment and 
whispered a little prayer of her own; and 
then, as her young assistants scattered 
at the church door to books or games, 
she took the road that led under the great 
elms of Holmhurst, to ask for news of 
Billy, who had now been gone more than 
ten days. 

The old house (Holmhurst had been 
built by the great-grandfather in State 
House Square) seemed very strange and 
quiet this evening, with no Billy to bound 
out on the pillared porch and shout a 
welcome. The tennis court was deserted; 
even the piano was still. There was only 
Miss van Doran on the porch, with a 
large pair of shears in her hands, 
nipping the tender shoots of the climb- 
ing roses. 

Miss van Doran was good, but neither 
young nor beautiful; and, swathed this 


BILLY -BOY 


lOI 


evening in a grey ulster and muffled 
in a black veil (for the malarial season 
was on), she did not add any cheer to 
the situation. 

“Good evening, my dear Miss Carmel, — 
good-evening! Mrs. Dayton and Dorothea 
are at Colonel Woodville’s. He wanted 
them to see his Japanese chrysanthemums 
in perfect bloom. I did not dare to venture, 
for they will be out until after dark. Come 
in. It gets a little too chilly for me at 
sunset. I only slipped out for a moment 
to prune these young shoots before the 
frost catches them. It always nips the 
fresh young shoots first; the old wood 
can stand the winter through. ” 

“ Has Billy’s mother heard from him 
yet?” asked Miss Carmel, as she followed 
Miss van Doran into the house, where 
pictures of the Revolutionary Colonel 
and the great-grandfather seemed to stand 
in stately guard in the wide hall; and 
Jack, on his first pony, held the big panel 
over the fireplace. 

“Heard from Billy?” Miss van Doran’s 
malarial countenance broke into smiling 
wrinkles. “My dear, yes, this morning! 
Such a very nice letter! I am proud of it. 


102 


BILLY -BOY 


As I told his mother, I never saw a better 
production from a boy of his age. So well 
expressed, and not a word misspelled. 
Really, it is most creditable. Would you 
like to see it?” 

“Very much, if Mrs. Dayton would not 
object,” said Miss Carmel; and as she 
sank into the rocker by the sitting-room 
fire, old Towser rose from the bearskin 
rug and laid his nose on her knee. 

“Object? Not at all, my dear, — not at 
all!” answered Miss van Doran. “It is 
the sort of letter that a mother is proud 
to show. Here it is, in the secretary. I 
want you to observe the date and margin, 
and even the punctuation. How perfectly 
correct! You would really suppose that 
his old teacher was at his elbow. Billy, 
though a dear, good boy, was a little 
heedless at times, as you know, and would 
spatter his ink; but there is not a blot, 
as you see.” 

Not a blot, indeed! Miss Carmel felt 
that she would have liked it better with 
a little smudge of the boyish hand. The 
vertical writing, so laboriously taught by 
Miss van Doran, was so painfully rigid and 
correct, — every i dotted and every t crossed. 


BILLY -BOY 


103 

Bar Cross Ranch, Colorado 
September 28. 

My dear Mother. — I arrived here 
safely on September twenty-fourth, after 
a very pleasant trip on the cars. Ben 
Morris, who is Jack’s foreman, met me 
at Buckston’s, where we had supper and 
stayed all night ; then we rode to Bar Cross 
next morning. It is a fine place, and I 
think the air from the mountains will 
expand my lungs, as the doctor said. I 
am feeling very well, and have a good 
appetite for my meals, and take a long 
ride every day on a pretty pony named 
Marquita. 

Jack has gone away on special business, 
but will be back soon. He says do not 
worry, for everything will be all right; 
and Dolly can go to Paris to school, and 
you will have a new carriage next year. 
I was a little homesick at first, but am 
better now. 

Give my love and affectionate respects 
to everyone I know. I pray God to bless 
you every night. I have put on my heavy 
flannels, for it is getting cold out here; 
and my cowboy shirts fit fine. So I hope 
you will not worry or feel sad, but trust 


104 


BILLY -BOY 


in Heaven that we shall meet again. And 
believe me, ever, 

Your devoted son, 

WiLiyiAM Corby Dayton. 

Miss Carmel read this missive twice 
over, with a queer little tremor about 
her lips; while good old Miss van Doran 
questioned in proud satisfaction: 

“Now really, my dear, don’t you think 
that is quite a remarkable letter for a 
boy of his age?” 

“Very remarkable,” answered Miss 
Carmel. “ It does not sound like Billy 
at all. But I suppose boys’ letters seldom 
do. I am glad to hear from him even 
like this. Now I must hurry home; for 
it is getting late, and I have been gone 
all day. Give my love to dear Mrs. Dayton 
and Dolly. Tell them I miss Billy7Boy 
almost as much as they do.” 

And, with a cheery good-bye to Miss 
van Doran, Miss Carmel patted Towser’s 
head and turned homeward through the 
fading sunset, an odd, unspoken pain in 
her tender heart because in this remark- 
able letter there had been no message for 
her. Had Billy-Boy forgotten already, — 
forgotten like the rest of his race and 


BILLY -BOY 


105 


kind ? The shadows of the old elms seemed 
to fall heavy upon her at the thought, — 
the old elms, under whose leafy boughs 
she had spent so many gay, happy girlish 
hours in the young years gone by, — the 
old elms whose dead leaves were drifting 
sere and yellow about her homeward way. 

Suddenly there came a rustle and slow 
patter behind her and old Towser stalked 
to her side. Stiff and rheumatic as he was, 
he knew that his duty, as the dog of a 
gentleman and a Dayton, was to see this 
dear young lady safe home. 

“Ah, Towser, — good old Towser!” 
And Miss Carmel broke into a soft, sad 
little laugh as she patted her gallant old 
friend's grey head. “Faithful Towser! 
You at least don’t forget. Go back, — 
go back to your hearth-rug, Towser! I 
can take care of myself.” 

But Towser refused to be dismissed; 
and together the two old friends walked 
on through the gathering shadows, until 
they reached the gates of Harrington Hall, 
where, after a good-night pat from his 
gentle young lady, Towser consented to 
stalk back to his bearskin rug again. 

And, somewhat cheered by this little 


io6 


BILL Y-BOY 


incident, Miss Carmel tripped up the 
steps, to be cheered even more; for the 
mail that had been accumulating all day 
lay in full view on the hall table; and 
there, among the invitations to teas 
and dinners and bridge parties, lay a 
rough-scrawled envelope, which she caught 
up with an exclamation of surprise and 
delight. 

“Billy! This can’t be from Billy, too!” 

But it was, as Miss Carmel saw, with 
dancing eyes, when she tore off the 
envelope, and glanced at the long pencil- 
scribbled page. No margin, no dates, no 
proper “epistolary correspondence” here! 
This was the sort of letter she wanted. 
This was from the real Billy she knew. 

Dropping into the big carved chair 
under the swinging lamp. Miss Carmel 
read, with a returning glow in her chilled 
heart : 

Dker, dker Miss Carmejl — ^I’ve just 
done my letter to mama, and it took all 
morning. I had to look in the dickshonary 
so many times to spell rite and to put all 
the stops in place, for Jack says mothers 
ought not to be worried about anything 
when boys are so far away from home. 


BILLY-BOY 


107 


So after I coppied that letter over five 
times, I couldn’t rite real good any more, 
but you said you didnt mind spelling 
or nuthing, and you dont worry like 
mothers; so I have just brought my pencil 
and pad out under the cottonwoods, to 
rite to you like I promised, and tell you 
everything about everybody out here. 

It is a nice place, only the porch is broke 
down, and the fences shaky, and the cow- 
shed roof is falling in; and mother would 
most faint if she saw the dust and spider 
webs, I know. There is no women to scrub 
or sweep ; only Chang the cook, who wears 
a long pigtail, and spits on my collars 
when he irons them, which I do not like. 
Besides there is Ben Morris, that they 
call Bony Ben because he is so big and 
bony; and Pedro, who is Mexican and 
cant talk much English; and Daddy, 
who is to old to do anything but mend 
straps and plate lariats; and three other 
men who ride the range and swear dredful 
when they come home. 

I had to wait a long time at Buckston, 
for Jack could not meet me. He had com- 
pany at Bar Cross — ^galoots Ben called 
them — that staid all night; so he sent 


io8 


BILLY -BOY 


Ben for me, and Ben broke open a store 
and cooked supper for me that was fine. 
And you must not tell mama, for I prom- 
ised Jack 1 wouldnt rite to her about it. 
But Jack was real sick when I got to Bar 
Cross. He was so weak and shaky he 
couldnt stand up. And, O Miss Carmel, 
he looks bad! You mustnt tell mama, 
but his cheeks are almost as thin as Miss 
van Dorans, and his eyes have big sinks 
under them, and his mouth dont laugh 
at all. Its malaria he says, — not second 
day like Miss van Dorans, but its next 
morning malaria, they have out here. 
He takes soda water for it, which I do 
not think is as good as pills. But though 
he looks so sick, he is deer and good the 
same still. And he asked about everybody, 
and whether you were dead or married, 
and I said no, never; though you would 
look butiful in a vale and wreth like Molly 
Fealy’s I know; but I hope you will not 
be dead or married till I get back home. 

Jack is away on speshul business, he 
went with Mr. Bret who is his friend and 
comrade. But Mr. Bret cut Pedros arm 
with a whip, which was cruel I think. 
Pedro says some day he will kill him, 


BILLY -BOY 


109 


which I told him was a grate sin, but he 
did not understand. I do not think people 
understand about sin out here. They 
have no church or Sunday-school or any- 
thing to make them good. I wisht you 
were here to teach them, Miss Carmel; 
for you teach fine. I found your beeds 
that you put in my pocket, and I say them 
as you told us the peeple did when the 
Turks were coming. I hope you will rite 
to me soon again, deer Miss Carmel. : ^ 
I have lots more to tell about Pancha 
and Wichita who are Pedro’s sisters, and 
who make drawn-work handkerchifs, 
which I will buy for you and mama, if I 
have enuff money before I come home. 
And Daddy can make indian baskets that 
are grate. But I must close my letter, for 
Ben is waiting to take it with the other 
that I rote to mama. Give my love to 
everybody. Father Tom and Dick Fealy 
and Joe Slevin and all the boys, and Leo 
and Towser t6o. I hope Towser hasn’t 
had any more fights with Mr. Ellis big 
Spot. Bulldogs dont fight fair, and Towser 
aint onto their mean tricks. I forgot to 
tell you to watch out for Spot, or he will 
tear Towser up some day, sure. Ben cant 


no 


BILLY -BOY 


wait any longer now, he says ; so good-bye, 
deer Miss Carmel. I am 

Affecshonately your trew friend, 

Billy. 

Miss Carmel read this letter twice; and 
then, going up to her own pretty room, 
she closed and locked the door and read 
it again. Then — ^then she knelt down 
beside her bed, and, burying her face 
upon the snowy pillows, sobbed and wept 
as if her tender heart would break. 

Billy’s letter had told her far more 
than the young writer out at Bar Cross 
had dreamed. No “spelling or punctua- 
shun’’ could have made it clearer to Miss 
Carmel that all she had feared for the 
dear friend and playmate of happy days 
gone by was true, — ^that Jack, with his 
“next morning malaria,” his sunken eyes 
and hollow cheeks, his new friends and 
comrades, was swiftly going the downward 
path that leads to ruin and destruction; 
and only Billy — ^innocent, unconscious 
Billy — was near to help and to save. 


BILLY -BOY 


III 


X. — ^The New Home. 

Somehow, it was growing a little dull 
at Bar Cross Ranch. Jack had been 
absent “on business” fully ten days. 
Billy had investigated everything within 
reach, and found much that was interest- 
ing. He had explored the banks of the 
Coyote Creek, threaded the shadowy 
depths of ha Noche Canon, scrambled up 
the rugged sides of Windy Mountain under 
Pedro’s skilful guidance; he had been 
over the hill (as slope and range and 
peak were impartially called by Bony 
Ben), mounted on Marquita, to whose 
sure and dainty feet heights and depths 
were as safe as level ground ; he had 
followed the trail into purple cloudlands, 
that grew into forests of green and banks 
of blossoms at his approach. He had spent 
a pleasant morning around the low adobe 
hut that was Pedro’s home, watching the 
half-clad little niHos frolicking, and the 
deft fingers of Pancha and Wichita busy 
with the beautiful Mexican drawn-work; 
while in the shed behind the house 


II2 


BILLY -BOY 


old Grandmother Martina, brown and 
withered as a dry walnut, bent over her 
loom, from which came blankets of quaint 
pattern and wonderful rainbow hues. 

It was old Martina who had cooked at 
Bar Cross long ago, and made the wonder- 
ful dulces which Billy’s mamma still held 
in sweet memory. She had been a wise 
woman in her time, so Pedro confided to 
Billy; though she was old now — “ah, so 
old!” And Pedro shook his ten brown 
digits in the air repeatedly in his efforts 
to convey the old grandmother’s inex- 
pressible age to Billy’s mind. But, despite 
her uncountable years, old Martina’s 
sunken eyes were still bright and keen; 
the wits behind them were perhaps sharper 
than the younger wits around her; and 
she dyed her wools and wove her blankets 
by ways of her own that she had learned 
in the Padre’s mission long, long ago. 

Quite as entertaining in another way 
was old Daddy. What Daddy’s real name 
was no one knew, and, according to the 
polite custom of the wild West, no one 
had ever ventured to inquire. He had 
drifted into Bar Cross about a dozen 
years before; and, finding it a rather 


BILLY -BOY 


113 

sheltered eddy in the stormy sea of life, 
decided to stay there indefinitely. 

Daddy’s accomplishments were without 
number. In his young days he could do 
anything, from setting a broken leg to 
carving a signet ring out of a peach stone. 
Now that his sight had somewhat failed 
and the rheumatics had stiffened his 
“jints, ” his activities were necessarily 
limited. But he could still mend straps 
and stirrups to be good as new; he could 
patch leather breeches and boots; he 
could plait lassos and lariats such as no 
rope-maker could twist and no money 
could buy. He could make pipes of clay 
and wood, also pouches and leggings. 
He could weave baskets; and, last but 
not least, he could play the jew’s-harp, — 
aye, he could play at the same time 
two, three, a whole orchestra of jew’s-harps 
of his own construction, softening^the 
twanging notes into strange, sweet melody. 
When Daddy sat out under the cotton- 
woods at nightfall and played his jew’s- 
harps, it seemed as if all the buzzing, 
droning, twittering things of the forest 
were blending in twilight song. 

“ My, I’d give a lot to play the Jew’s- 


BILLY -BOY 


114 

harp like that!” said Billy, as, the second 
day after Jack’s departure, he listened 
admiringly to Daddy’s spirited rendition 
of “The Arkansas Traveller.” “Do you 
think you could ever teach me?” 

Daddy removed his orchestra from his 
mouth and shook his grizzled head. 

“I’m feard I couldn’t, sonny. I’d like 
to fust-rate, but I jest nachelly can’t. 
You see, the jew’s-harp ain’t like nothing 
else. The music comes from somewhere 
in folks innards, and can’t be taught. 
Sort of like katydids and crickets, and 
you can’t larn that.” 

“How did you learn, please?” asked 
Billy, who was seated on the stump of 
an old cottonwood, hugging his knees, 
while his brown eyes studied the old 
man’s weather-beaten face. 

“How did I larn?” chuckled Daddy. 
“ Blamed, if I know, sonny. When you’re 
pitched out in the world to sink or swim, 
you sort of catch on to most anything 
that comes your way. ” 

“And were you pitched out in the 
world?” asked Billy, sympathetically. 

“Well, rather,” replied Daddy. “My 
folks was crossing the Divide in a prairie 


BILLY -BOY 


115 

schooner, and run into a band of Injus, and 
they rizzed the har of the whole outfit. ” 

The past perusal of Dick Fealy’s books 
enabled Billy to apprehend something of 
Daddy’s meaning. 

“Raised their hair! You mean the 
Indians killed and scalped everyone?” 
gasped the young listener. 

“Most everyone,” answered Daddy, 
calmly. “My mother crawled off into the 
sagebrush with me (so I’ve hearn: I was 
too little to know). At any rate, that’s 
whar they found her dead, and me squeal- 
ing like a steam whistle beside her. It 
was a half-breed hunter who got me and 
took me to his squaw. ” 

“And — and then?” asked Billy, breath- 
lessly, as Daddy, who was not given to 
autobiography, paused. 

“Well, I tumbled around their cabin 
for a year or two, I reckon; and then 
they took the trail farther West, and they 
didn’t want to bother with no strays; 
so they dropped me with an old French 
Padre who was out there to christianize 
them red devils.” 

“A priest you mean,” asked Billy, — 
“a Catholic priest?” 


ii6 


BILLY -BOY 


“Yes,” answered Daddy. “Thar warn’t 
no other kind of sky pilots pushing over 
the border then, you bet! Too risky. 
Pretty nigh the fust thing I remember 
clearly is old Pere Jean teaching me to 
read out of a book with red letters in it. 
Them red letters took my fancy sure.” 

“And did you stay long?” asked Billy, 
as Daddy came to another stop in his 
narrative. 

“Must have been quite a piece of 
time,” answered the old man, reflectively. 
“ For an eight-year-older, I learned a lot — 
spelling and reading and praying. And 
Pere Jean christened me, and gave me 
the name of his own liking — Etienne. 
Most too heavy and furrin to hold to, so 
I dropped it later on. But sometimes 
now, when I’m dozing over my pipe, 
seems as if I heard old Pere Jean’s voice 
calling like he used to call through the 
pine woods : ‘ Etienne I Etienne ! It is 
growing dark; the night is falling. Come 
home to your old father, Etienne!’ He 
was good to me sure. It’s a long time back 
to remember, but Pere Jean was good to 
me. He’d have sent me off East to school 
and made something respectable of me; 


BILLY -BOY 


117 

but them blamed redskins that he was 
trying to make into decent Christians got 
into a row with another tribe. They had 
dug up the tomahawk, and was dancing 
the war dance; and I woke up one night 
to find the hull place ablaze, and the air 
full of war whoops; and Pere Jean was 
lying dead, with his cross in his hands, 
whar he had gone out among the red devils 
to make peace.” 

“And then — and then?” Billy was now 
fairly athrill with excitement. “What 
happened then? Golly, you tell fine stories! 
Good as any book! Why, P^re Jean was 
a martyr! I never knew anybody before 
who had been acquainted with a real 
martyr. People ought to know about him. 
Ill get pencil and paper to-morrow and 
write it all down, so I won’t forget.” 

“ No, you don’t,” said Daddy in alarm, — 
“no, you don’t, sonny! I don’t talk for 
no writing down. Fust thing I know 
thar’d be trouble on my trail. I didn’t 
know you was the writing kind, or I 
wouldn’t hev talked at all.” 

“Oh, you’re not going to stop your 
story!” said Billy, in dismay. “Why, 
you haven’t half finished your experiences. 


ii8 


BILLY -BOY 


Daddy! You’ve only got up to when you 
were eight years old. ” 

“That’s far enough,” answered Daddy, 
grimly, — “plenty far enough. After that 
it’s best to forgit things, — a heap best to 
forgit. And it’s getting late, and the chill 
sinks into my old bones after sundown, 
so we best go in sonny, — we best go in. ” 

And not another story could Billy draw 
from old Daddy that night. 

But, of all the friends he was making 
in his new home, Billy felt that Bony Ben 
was alike his first and best. After Jack’s 
departure, Ben had left his own shack, 
where he had everything to his rough 
simple fancy; and camped watchfully at 
the big house every night, to “keep an 
eye on the kid. ” No persuasions from 
Dick, Dan or Toby, no rumors of a 
barbecue at Weaver’s, or a shooting match 
at Dingley’s corner, not even the regular 
monthly meeting of the Range Riders, 
could lure him from his post. And even 
through the busy day Billy was conscious 
that Ben was keeping an “eye” upon him. 

“ Don’t let that Dago take you too far 
down the Gulch. Toby seen a wild cat 
thar yesterday. Best keep away from 


BILLY -BOY 


119 

that new camp ’cross Windy Mountain. 
It’s a lot of lungers. Their cough is 
ketching, and town folks won’t take them 
in. If I was you, I wouldn’t hang around 
the stables too much. Dan and Toby does 
a lot of rough talking that them home 
folks of yourn wouldn’t like you to hear. ” 

And on the bright days when, mounted 
on Marquita, Billy rode with Ben over 
the hills, there was always a strong hand 
ready at the steep rough places, to grasp 
Marquita’s bridle or turn her into safer 
ways. 

So four, five, six, ten days passed and 
still Jack did not return. “He said he 
wouldn’t stay very long,’’ observed Billy, 
as he and Ben sat before the big fire 
that the chilling nights demanded. “But 
he can’t help it, I suppose. There’s a lot 
of business to do when your father is 
dead and you are head of the family, 
like Jack. And running a ranch takes a 
lot of money; don’t it, Ben?” 

“Rather considerable,” assented Ben, 
as he puffed at his pipe. 

“It took a lot last year, I know,” 
continued Billy. “Mamma sat up one 
night with Miss van Doran doing sums 


120 


BILLY -BOY 


about it. Mamma isn’t much on doing 
sums by herself; she always liked music 
better than arithmetic at school. But Miss 
van Doran went as far as trigonometry, and 
can do sums fine. And she went over all 
the accounts and bills and papers with 
mamma, and added and subtracted, and 
said she couldn’t make things work out 
clear even with algebra, which works out 
with letters when figures won’t go right 
at all. And mamma got a headache and 
cried, and said it was a dreadful thing to 
be a widow. But Jack was doing all right, 
she knew; and she couldn’t worry him. 
She would sell the south lot to Colonel 
Woodville and pay all the bills next 
day. ” 

“Hasn’t your mother got no men folks 
with good hard sense around?” asked 
Ben, gruffly. 

“No,” answered Billy, — “only Uncle 
Martin; and he doesn’t live at our house, 
but teaches Greek and Latin in a college 
in town. The only man in our family is 
Jack. But I’m growing up fast. I’ll be 
thirteen in May. I’ll be a man pretty 
soon; and then I’ll help Jack run 
this place, and between us we’ll strike 


BILLY -BOY 


I2I 


the old Curado lead that will make us 
billionaires. ” 

“The Curado lead!" Ben took his pipe 
out of his mouth and stared at the young 
speaker. “ What do you know about the 
Curado lead? It dropped down into worse 
than nothing twenty years ago. Your 
father lost a lot of money on it. " 

“ I know, ’’ said Billy. “ We’ve got maps 
about it at home. Dolly and I used to 
play geography with them up in the 
garret. There is a whole box of them 
that some one sent to mamma two years 
ago, and said he had cheated papa, and 
was making restitution. I suppose he had 
been to confession. When you go to 
confession you have to make restitution, 
even if it’s only a box of old paper maps. 
But poor papa had been dead three years 
when the box of maps came. Mamma had 
no use for them, so Dolly and I used to 
play geography games with them. That’s 
how I know all about the Curado lead. 
It was a big red-inked line on all of 
them, — bigger than anything on the map. 
It broke off on one side of Coyote Creek, 
and then started again in a line right 
through Bar Cross.’’ 


122 


BILLY-BOY 


“It did?” said Ben, excitedly. “And 
right across the Southwest Ridge? I’ll 
bet my bottom dollar that’s what old 
Daddy’s been a saying all this time, and 
everybody thought he was daffy. The 
Southwest Ridge! Laws, it takes a soft- 
eyed tenderfoot to strike things straight! 
It’s the Southwest Ridge that them 
sharps Sandy Nick has in hand is trying 
to gull your brother into selling them 
for a sanitarium! A sanitarium, with the 
Curado lead brimming with pay dirt below 
it ! Any other papers boxed up with 
them maps, sonny?” 

“ Yes, ” answered Billy; “ but they were 
in Spanish, so nobody at home could 
read them.” 

“And can you git them?” asked Bony 
Ben, breathlessly. “Anybody at home 
with gumption enough to send them to 
you?” 

“Why, yes!” answered Billy. “Dolly 
would roll them up and send them, I’m 
sure. What do you want with them?” 

“ Never you mind that, sonny. Keep 
your mouth shet tight about them maps 
till I tell you to open it. But send for 
them right now. Git pen and paper and 


BILLY-BOY 


123 


tell your folks you want them papers, 
and the maps most perticler. And we’ll 
play a little geography game out here,” 
concluded Bony Ben, with his grim 
chuckle. “I sort of think, sonny, that 
you and me have the cards to beat Sandy 
Nick and his sharpers yet.” 


124 


BILLY -BOY 


XI. — An Exciting Day. 

The letter to Dolly was written and 
addressed in Billy’s best handwriting, and 
Ben was over the hills next morning to 
mail it before the young writer was up. 
This good friend and guardian had said 
he would be absent all day. Purchases 
of food and fodder and other supplies for 
the ranch had to be made monthly; for 
the neglected acres of Bar Cross, in these 
latter years, furnished no sustenance for 
either man or beast. Ben was doing his 
best; but Ben was neither farmer nor 
builder, and Daddy’s busy days were 
done. So once a month Ben made the 
round of more thrifty ranches, and, with 
a shrewd eye for bargains, “stocked up.’’ 

It was a bright October day, snappy 
and breezy; and the bracing air of the 
mountain made Billy long for a canter 
on Marquita over the sunkissed hills. 
Already he felt the pulse of new life in 
his tingling veins, a growing strength in 
muscle and sinew; his cheeks were be- 
ginning to round and flush, his shoulders 


BILLY -BOY 


125 


to straighten vigorously. Dr. MacVeigh’s 
tonic stood untouched on the mantel: 
it was no longer needed. 

Billy was just in the mood for some- 
thing exciting this morning, when, straying 
aimlessly toward the corral, he came upon 
Pedro transformed. Pedro’s usual garb 
was as sober and scanty as propriety 
would permit, — a pair of jean trousers of 
no particular fit or fashion; a loose shirt, 
with many a rent in bosom and sleeve; 
a shapeless hat with a broken brim. But 
to-day Billy could only pause and stare 
in amazement at the figure that con- 
fronted him; for Pedro was in holiday 
attire, indeed, — an attire that, old and 
faded as it was, glittered with tinsel 
and buttons and tassels. Velvet breeches 
encased Pedro’s slender legs; a velvet 
jacket, cut in numberless points, set off 
his slim figure; a red silk scarf was 
knotted around his waist, a red handker- 
chief tied about his throat; his hat was 
turned up on the side with a paste buckle 
that held a turkey feather. 

“Golly!” exclaimed Billy, as soon as 
he could find voice. “Who dressed you 
up like that?” 


126 


BILLY -BOY 


Though the two friends still found 
their Spanish- American conversation some- 
what confusing, they had begun to under- 
stand each other better. The friendly 
comradeship of the little senor was an 
ever-growing delight to Pedro. 

He nodded and smiled now, in evident 
pride at Billy’s amazement. 

“I dress fine? Yes, yes, little senor! 
It is that I go to Las Rocas to-day 
to la fiesta — what you call it? Ze good 
time, — great good time at Las Rocas 
to-day, at ze dance, ze race, ze eat, ze 
drink, ze market, what you call it? 
Bveryting fine, bully, great!” concluded 
Pedro, waving his hands gleefully. 

“A market?” repeated Bill3^ “I guess 
you mean a fair?” 

''Si, senor: fair, very fair! Ze tepees, 
ze horse-races — all very fair. I go to sell 
ze blanket, ze lacework, ze baskets. I get 
big money, little senor!” 

And by dint of much nodding and 
gesticulation, Pedro at last made Billy 
understand that once a year, when the 
summer was past, and the grain and 
fruit had ripened, and the moon was 
round and yellow, there was a festive 


BILLY -BOY 


127 


gathering at the little village of Las Rocas, 
across the hills, — a gathering that dated 
back to the time when Americanos had 
no place or right in the land of the Indian 
and the conquistador. 

As well as Billy could gather from 
Pedro’s broken but voluble narration, 
the feast at Las Rocas was a primitive 
combination of Thanksgiving and country 
fair. The natives gathered from miles 
around. There were shooting matches 
and racing and other games. There was 
a lottery, in which were drawn prizes 
as high as ten pesos. There was much 
cooking and feasting; and camp fires 
blazed out at night; and the old braves, 
wrapped in their blankets, told stories 
of wars and buffalo hunts of long ago. 

All this had been at Las Rocas in the 
past, but now there was much more. In 
the “tepees,” that once had been only 
for shelter, the women sold blankets and 
rugs and bead work and drawn-work: 
moccasins, pouches, belts, baskets, and 
pottery, — all the Indian handiwork that 
drew dollars from the pockets of the 
Americanos who came to see and buy. 
And because no one, in all the Coyote 


128 


BILLY -BOY 


county, could weave blankets so gay and 
wonderful as old Grandmother Martina, 
or could make the lace and drawn-work 
so beautiful as Pancha and Wichita, Pedro, 
in the fine clothes that had been his 
father's, was going to Las Rocas to sell 
the family output, and bring home many 
dollars for the family needs. 

“My, wouldn’t I like to go with you!" 
said Billy, eagerly. “ I never in my life 
saw a real Indian or a tepee or a squaw 
or — or anything. I wdsh I could go too." 

“Go! — the little senor go to Las 
Rocas!" Pedro’s eyes sparkled, and all 
his holiday buttons and tassels jingled 
and quivered with delight. “Go! Why 
not, little senor, — why not?" 

Why not indeed? Had not Jack given 
him Pedro as companion and guide? Was 
not pretty Marquita in the stable awaiting 
his will? Ben was away. A vague, uneasy 
doubt as to what Ben would say to this 
expedition crossed Billy’s mind, but van- 
ished in the flood of persuasive eloquence 
flowing in broken English from Pedro's 
lips. The little senor could go, of course. 
It would be Pedro's joy and pleasure and 
pride to have him. The road was good, 


BILLY -BOY 


129 


the day was fine; there would be won- 
derful things to see, to hear, — shooting, 
wrestling. “Long Arm," the strong brave 
of the Utes, would be there to throw all 
who came; and there would be tortillas 
and tamales. And Predo rolled off a menu 
that, half understood, appealed irresist- 
ibly to Billy’s expanding appetite. 

“I think I’ll go,” he answered conclu- 
sively. “ It will be dreadfully dull staying 
at the Ranch all alone; for Chang and 
Daddy don’t have much to say. So, if 
it isn’t too far — ” 

“Far! — too far! Ah, Santa Maria, no, 
not too far at all!” declared Pedro. 

So it was settled, and in a few moments 
the two were mounted, — Billy on the 
pretty Marquita, and Pedro on Diaz, a 
sturdy little mustang. The men, Dan and 
Dick and Toby, were off on the range 
to-day; there was only old Daddy, plaiting 
his lariat in the morning sunshine, to 
witness the young riders’ departure, as, 
waving their hands to him in merry adieu, 
they took the road to the creek and the 
cabin where Pedro was to gather up his 
merchandise, — the gay blanket, the two 
smaller bedside rugs, the box of hand- 


130 


BILLY -BOY 


kerchiefs and doilies and tablecloths, over 
which Pancha and Wichita had been 
working for many a long month. 

It was quite a momentous occasion; 
and Billy found the little home by the 
Coyote in a hubbub of excitement as old 
Martina, her sunken eyes flashing with 
pride, made a final display of her work 
to a group of admiring neighbors. 

“Ah, Santa Maria, they are beautiful! 
Never have we seen anything like them, — 
the rugs, the blankets are of a splendor 
beyond words,” the visitors all agreed. 

“They should bring ten, twenty, thirty 
dollars!” the old woman declared in shrill 
triumph. 

“Thirty dollars!” gasped Pedro. “It is 
impossible, — impossible ! ” 

“Thirty!” repeated the woman. “It 
is the pattern of the rising sun and the 
rainbow that only Martina can weave. 
For what do I sit at the loom all the 
weary day long? For what do I make 
the dyes that no other woman knows? 
For what have I kept the secrets of my 
mother and my grandmother? It must 
be thirty dollars!” 

A wild clamor of argument and dispute. 


BILLY -BOY 


131 

with much waving of arms and hands, 
followed this announcement. Thirty dol- 
lars! Surely the old mother had gone mad! 
Thirty dollars ! Pedro could never get 
such a sum. Thirty dollars! Caramba! he 
would not be fool enough to take the rugs 
and blanket at all, expecting such a price. 

“What’s the trouble?’’ asked Billy, as, 
quite unable to comprehend the discus- 
sion, he saw Pedro shake his head and 
fling out his hands in the apparent despair 
of one whose last hope has failed. 

Pedro explained as clearly as excite- 
ment would permit that the old grand- 
mother had lived too long : her head 
was turned, her wits were gone. She 
demanded that he sell her rugs and blanket 
for thirty dollars! Thirty dollars would 
buy a horse; it would buy two cows; 
it might even, in a domestic emergency, 
buy a house. Thirty dollars! Not even 
the rich Americanos would pay such a 
price for blanket or rugs. 

“They wouldn’t!” exclaimed Billy, who 
had seen and heard of the Indian rugs 
in Colonel Woodville’s study. “I know 
a man who paid twice as much, and even 
bragged he got them at a bargain. Thirty 


132 


BILLY -BOY 


dollars! Why, that’s dirt cheap! Take 
them along, Pedro. You can get all that 
for them, I know.” 

Old Martina understood a little English, 
and, through the excited protests of her 
family, the confident boyish tone reached 
her ear. 

“Si, siL' she cried. “It is as I said. 
The little senor knows. Ah, if he goes to 
Las Rocas with Pedro all will be right! 
He can talk to the Americanos; and they 
will pay the thirty dollars, that old Martina 
may eat and be warm.” 

“You bet they will!” said Billy, ex- 
panding now with new importance; for 
when had he ever before been called upon 
to decide a commercial matter? “You’ll 
get every bit of thirty dollars, if anybody 
knows what’s what.” 

“Si, si! It is as I said. The little senor 
knows.” 

And then the clamor rose again, with 
old Martina nodding and gesticulating in 
the midst of it, until suddenly she broke 
off and laid her brown skinny hand on 
Billy’s sleeve. 

“ I will do it, little senor, for you, — I 
will do it. Come! Come you, Pedro, too; 


BILLY -BOY 


133 


come!” And she drew Billy back from 
the living room, where the rest of the 
family cooked and worked and ate and 
slept into a little bedchamber that was 
Martina’s own, and was kept ready for 
the grandmother’s “dying,” which could 
not be a very distant event now. The 
bed was neatly made, with lace-trimmed 
sheets and pillow. There was a little table, 
covered with a spotless cloth, on which 
were a brass crucifix and two candles. 
A Madonna, gay with tinsel and artificial 
flowers, stood upon a shelf near by. 

But Martina was not thinking of her 
last hour now. Diving under the bed with 
an activity that belied her fourscore years, 
she dragged out an old chest battered and 
worn, but with clamps and hinges of real 
silver. 

''Santa Maria!” gasped Pedro, as the 
old woman pulled forth a key that she 
wore hung around her neck. Unlocking 
this guarded treasure, she cautiously drew 
out its contents: a jacket of blue velvet 
embroidered in silver, knee-breeches to 
match, leggings of deerskin wrought with 
wonderful traceries of vines and flowers, 
a wide felt hat looped up with a silver 


134 


BILLY -BOY 


chain. One by one Martina spread these 
glittering garments on the bed, with the 
air of one making a solemn and supreme 
sacrifice; then, stretching out her arm 
and turning to Billy, she broke into a 
flood of excited language. All that Billy 
could comprehend was, 

“For you, little senor, — for you, — for 
you!” 

''Santa Maria!” murmured Pedro again, 
as if he could not believe his own ears 
or eyes. 

“What does she mean?” asked Billy, 
as the old woman began another excited 
rhapsody in her own tongue. 

Then Pedro recovered wits and voice, 
and broke into delighted explanation: 

“For you, little senor; for you to wear 
to Las Rocas; the clothes of Tio Jose, 
my uncle that died.” 

"Si, si!” added Martina, her old voice 
quavering. “My Jose, my little Jos6, my 
one only; no other boy. Four, five, six 
girls, little senor; but one only boy. For 
this, in my pride, my joy; I make these 
so fine clothes for my one only boy, who 
die and never wear them. Seel” — she 
held up the leggings and jacket and 


BILLY-BOY 


135 


breeches, and showed their delicate needle- 
work. “No hidalgo could have finer. All 
these years have I kept these clothes of 
my Jose, and let no one touch them. 
Little senor, they shall be yours, to wear 
to the Las Rocas to-day, that you may 
look fine and handsome and brave, as the 
son of your lady mother should not look 
dull and dark like this.” And Martina 
laid her hand upon the grey sweater which 
Billy wore on his mountain rides, and 
shook her head in solemn disapproval. 

Through the old woman’s mixed jargon, 
light broke at last upon Billy. 

“You mean I am not dressed right, — 
that I must put on those clothes?” he 
asked eagerly. 

“SL si, senor,” cried Pedro, delight- 
edly. “It is as the old grandmother says: 
it would be a shame for the little senor 
to go to the fiesta in so sad, so ugly, so 
poor a jacket when he can have Tio Jose’s 
clothes. Put them on, little senor!” 
pleaded Pedro under his breath. “ Put 
them on quickly, or the grandmother may 
change and lock them up in the chest 
again. Put them on, and let us be gone.” 

And, as Billy made no protest, Pedro 


136 


BILLY -BOY 


proceeded hurriedly to remove the sad 
and sober garments, and substitute those 
of Tio Jos€; old Martina assisting with 
trembling fingers until every button and 
cord and tassel, glittering brightly still 
in spite of long years of seclusion, was in 
proper place; and Billy stood transformed 
into a gallant, graceful, dashing, dazzling 
little figure that did not seem our 
“Billy-Boy” at all. 


BILLY-BOY 


137 


XII. — At Las Rocas. 

Every eye was fixed on Billy- Boy as he 
stood at the doorway, feeling a little 
queer and sheepish, it must be confessed, 
in Tio Jose’s holiday garb. But he was 
speedily reassured by the rapturous 
commendations rising on all sides. 

“ Never was there anything more 
elegant, more beautiful!” said Pancha. 
“The little sen or looks like a hidalgo, like 
a prince.” 

“Now, indeed, is he fitted to go to Las 
Rocas as become the noble Americanos 
who own the wild lands of the Coyote,” 
added Wichita. “Old Martina would have 
gone to her grave in remorse and shame 
if she had permitted the son of Billy’s 
lady-mother to appear at a fiesta^ without 
holiday dress, when the clothes of Tio 
Jose were just of his size and shape. No, 
no! It never would have done! It would 
be a shame and disgrace!” 

So Billy, who was fast learning to 
accept much that he could not under- 
stand in this new life, resigned himself 


138 


BILLY -BOY 


to his borrowed plumes quite cheerfully, 
especially after a glance in the cracked 
mirror which Pancha hurriedly brought 
forward, and which showed him a jaunty 
little figure much to his taste. 

All preliminaries being thus settled, and 
the rugs and other salables packed safely, 
the two boys mounted their ponies 
and proceeded on their way. It was a 
long way and a very rough way, as 
Billy soon discovered. It was well for 
him that Marquita was careful and 
sure-footed. 

The road, passable at first to ordinary 
mountain travel, afterward turned into 
a trail that had to be taken Indian file. 
Pedro went first, Diaz scrambling up 
and down rocky steeps, rounding dizzy 
ledges, wading mountain streams; while 
Marquita followed, picking her way in 
dainty disapproval, but never missing a 
step. Before they were an hour out, Billy 
felt convinced that Ben would not have 
agreed to this adventure; but it was now 
too late to withdraw. 

At last, after a three hours’ journey, 
the young riders turned a curve in the 
mountain, and Pedro cried triumphantly: 


BILLY -BOY 


139 

“Las Rocas, little senor! Look! It is 
there below.” 

And Billy looked, and forgot all 
his doubts and fears in the novel 
sight; for Las Rocas was a lively scene 
that day. 

The little Indian village lay in a moun- 
tain pass where great walls of rock, rent 
asunder in some prehistoric convulsion of 
nature, formed a sort of rude gateway 
that had given the place its name. The 
shriek of the steam whistle had never 
reached Las Rocas; telegraph and tele- 
phones were unknown; neither coach nor 
automobile could there find passageway. 
The only approaches to it were old trails 
made by the Indians before the white 
man had come to claim these Western 
hunting grounds. So, after a fashion, the 
Indians still held Las Rocas for their 
own. Queer little cabins and huts clung 
like birds’- nests to the mountainside; 
there were tepees, brown and tattered 
with the storms and winds; but, best of 
all for the present purpose, there was 
La Calle, a long stretch of level ground, 
once perhaps the bed of a mountain 
torrent that had torn its fierce way 


140 


BILLY-BOY 


through these encircling cliffs and lost 
itself in some greater stream beyond, 
leaving only the little spring trickling into 
its stone basin to tell of the strength and 
beauty that had passed. 

But La Calle was a lively scene to-day, 
with new tepees that had felt neither sun 
nor storm ; booths arched with green 
boughs, and tables covered with gay 
cloths and awnings; while up and down 
the width and length of La Calle, through 
the booths and tepees, around the tables 
and the spring, moved a motley throng, — 
Indians, old and young; squaws with their 
pappooses, young braves gay in wampum 
strings and feathers; cowboys, herders, 
rancheros, red men, white men, yellow 
men, brown men. 

It was such a gathering as Billy had 
never seen before; for tin horns were 
blowing, drums were beating, shrill voices 
calling. A very Babel of sound swelled 
up to the young riders on the trail above. 
Billy, who was rather tired and hungry 
after his long trip, felt a thrill of delighted 
surprise. No circus that had ever set up 
dazzling attractions in Holmhurst football 
field could compare to this. 


BILLY -BOY 


141 

“Do you pay to get in?” he asked, 
glad that, even in the excitement of his 
change of garments, he had thought to 
transfer his purse with its three dollars 
to Tio Jose’s velvet pocket. 

“Pay, little senor? No, no, no!” replied 
Pedro. “Come, now, I take you in. Pay? 
No, no!” 

And the speaker, who evidently knew 
the ways of Las Rocas, guided his com- 
panion down the steep road, snapped his 
fingers to a couple of barelegged Indian 
boys, who came running up to take care 
of the ponies; so the riders dismounted 
and the agent of old Martina proceeded 
to unload his merchandise. 

While Pedro was haggling with some 
of the booth-owners for a place to display 
his stock, Billy looked around him with 
interest. He had attended his home county 
fair last year, in company with Dick 
Fealy, whose bantam chickens had taken 
a prize; but, even with the exhilarating 
companionship of a prize-winner, the 
county fair of civilization was a very 
tame thing compared to this. Wrestling, 
shooting, racing-matches were in full swing. 
The strong man of the Utes, looking like 


142 


BILLY -BOY 


a copper-colored figure in his full undress, 
was doing up a writhing opponent with 
murderous skill, to the grunting approval 
of the Indian spectators. Men were 
trading and swapping horses, playing 
cards, pitching quoits, throwing dice, — 
shouting, chattering, disputing, swearing 
in half a dozen languages. With the 
exception of the dozen or so squaws 
seated behind the blanket and rugs they 
had brought for sale, no ladies were in 
evidence, — another contrast to Billy’s 
home fair, where the gentler sex took 
prizes for everything, from patchwork 
quilts to poodle dogs. 

After a short stroll through the line 
of booths and tents, Billy returned, to 
find Pedro standing somewhat despairingly 
behind his rugs and lacework. The old 
squaw, who had consented to their display 
in her tepee, had been most discouraging. 
Pedro thus put the case in his pigeon 
English ; 

“ It is the bad luck year this, old 
Concha says. No rich Americanos come 
to buy. All day since sunrise she has 
waited and sold nothing, nothing! Only 
ze vendedors — what you call ze Yankee 


BILLY -BOY 


143 


peddlers — come to ask what price, that 
they may buy and sell again. They will 
not even pay ten pesos, Concha says. 
Caramba! Never will I sell ze rugs of 
my grandmother to such robbers!” 

“ No, don’t,” said Billy, who had learned 
that a peso meant a dollar. “Stand up 
for your grandmother’s price, Pedro. Why, 
Colonel Woodville paid twice or three 
times as much for the rug in his house, 
I know!” 

“Sf, si, senor” agreed Pedro, taking 
courage from this assured opinion. “ We 
will stand up, as you say. ” 

But it was vain for the young merchant 
to “stand up”: the vendedors, shrewd, 
keen-eyed dealers, had come out of the 
usual ways of transportation, to find 
bargains; and, though they recognized 
the value of old Martina’s work, they 
laughed at the price. Three, four, five, 
half a dozen made offers that Pedro scorn- 
fully refused as altogether beneath his 
notice; though in truth, the brave heart 
under his gay holiday jacket was beginning 
to fail. He had sold the drawn- work of 
Pancha and Wichita at a fair price; it 
was light and dainty enough to be sent 


144 


BILLY-BOY 


to Eastern shops and homes for a 
few postage stamps, and visitors bought 
readily; but selling the rugs of his grand- 
mother was quite another affair. It 
looked as if they were going to dead-weight 
all his holiday hopes; as if there would 
be no “good time” for old Martina’s 
young agent, whose one gala day seemed 
destined to be a cruel disappointment, 
after all. 

Billy, who had taken another turn 
around the place and seen most of its 
sights, came back to the booth, to find 
Pedro saying very bad Spanish words 
under his breath. Old Concha had given 
up and sold out to the vendedor at his 
own robber’s price. It seemed truly that 
he must do the same. 

“No,” said Billy, who had the business 
head of his own shrewd father under his 
boyish curls; “don’t let them do you, 
too, Pedro. Stand to your old grand- 
mother’s price. Here, you go round and 
have a little fun; let me take your place. 
Maybe you can’t make them understand. 
If they are Yankees, as you say, I can 
talk to them straight.” 

And Pedro, who knew that his own talk 


BILLY -BOY 


145 


had been neither straight nor convincing, 
gladly agreed to this proposal, and hurried 
off in delight to see some of the “good 
times” for which he had hoped, leaving 
the little senor in Tio Jose’s holiday garb 
to attend to business. 

He had not very long to wait for it. 
In a few moments the vendedors, by their 
speech and manners Americanos, drew 
near talking earnestly. 

“This is the place,” said one. “I have 
just cleaned out the old woman, who had 
some pretty fair stuff for sale, but nothing 
like this. In fact, there is nothing like 
these rugs on the market. They get up 
cheaper things now, to suit the Eastern 
demand. These are fine, as you see, — 
the oldtime dyes and patterns that you 
don’t get at any price. If you are looking 
for something first class, you can’t do 
better than take this boy’s rugs. You can 
get fifty dollars for that large one 
anywhere. ” 

“Fifty?” repeated the other excitedly. 
“Why, it’s a fac-simile of one in Mrs. 
Senator Grayson’s hall, that she told me 
I could match for her at any price. What 
does the young greaser ask for it?” 


146 


BILLY-BOY 


“Most anything you’ll give, I guess,” 
laughed the other. “He was standing 
on thirty dollars for three a while ago, 
but I rather think by this time he has 
weakened. Offer him twenty for the 
bunch, and you’ll get them, I’m sure.” 

“Oh, he will, eh? Not much!” thought 
Billy, with a sparkle in his brown eye. 
Every word of the speakers, who believed 
their conversation was quite beyond the 
seeming “greaser’s” understanding, had 
reached the little senor’s ear. 

“Why, halloo!” The first vendedor 
became suddenly aware that the velvet- 
clad figure behind old Martina’s rugs was 
not the same with whom he had bargained. 

“Where’s the other chap?” ,he asked 
in Spanish. 

“ I speak English, ” said Billy-Boy. 

“ The dickens you do ! ” said the vendedor. 

“Pedro left me here in his place to sell 
his grandmother’s rugs. People can fool 
him because he does not understand Eng- 
lish; but I do, you see. ” And Billy looked 
up at the vendedor s with his boyish smile. 

The two men looked at each other for 
a moment, then burst into a hearty laugh. 

“ Who are you, anyhow? And what are 


BILLY-BOY 


147 

you doing dressed up like that?” said 
the first vendedor, good-humoredly. 

“I’m Billy Dayton from Bar Cross 
Ranch, where Pedro works for my 
brother. His old grandmother lent me 
these clothes that belonged to her dead 
boy. She said I must dress up like this 
to come here. She is very poor,” continued 
Billy; “and it takes a long time to make 
a rug, her fingers are so crooked and shaky 
now. She works sometimes from daylight 
to dark, and she is more than eighty years 
old. I don’t think she will be able to 
make many more. ” 

“She won’t, indeed!” was the quick 
reply. “You’ve got us all around, lad. 
What will you take for the lot?” 

Billy made a rapid computation in 
mental arithmetic that did credit to Miss 
van Doran’s teaching. 

“Sixty dollars,” he answered briefly, — • 
“forty for the big rug, and ten apiece for 
the little ones.” 

“Sixty dollars!” echoed the vendedor, 
angrily. -^‘Take thirty, and be glad to 
get it! Sixty dollars! You don’t know 
what you are talking about, boy!” 

“Oh, yes, I do!” answered Billy, cheer- 


148 


BILLY-BOY 


fully. “ I’ve seen Indian rugs before, at 
home at Colonel Woodville’s. Mrs. Senator 
Grayson is his sister; you said she would 
pay any price for one like this. I could 
take it back to-night, you know,” said 
Billy confidentially, “and write Colonel 
Woodville that old Martina has got just 
what his sister wants, and — ” 

A fierce oath burst from the vendedor's 
lips, but his companion clapped him on 
the shoulder. 

“Done!” he exclaimed, laughing, — 
“done brown, Phillips! The youngster 
has the drop on us.” 

“We won’t trouble you to go into any 
correspondence, kiddie,” said the other. 
“Sixty dollars, cash down!” (He drew 
out a well-stuffed wallet.) “There’s your 
price. Count it out, and be sure of it; 
for a hard-headed, soft-hearted financier, 
Billy Dayton, you have any salesman I 
know beaten to a frazzle. ” 


BILLY -BOY 


149 


XIII. — Bob Bryck. 

WhiIvK Billy was disposing of old Martina’s 
rugs, Pedro was enjoying his belated 
holiday, — taking in the free shows and 
cautiously investing a few pennies where 
pennies were necessary. Las Rocas was 
growing livelier and noisier as the day wore 
on. The venders of “pulque,” the native 
wine, were doing a brisk business, with 
the usual results. Gambling and betting 
were becoming louder and more reckless. 

About three o’clock a group of riders 
came galloping down the trail that led 
from the Jig Saw mining camp some fifteen 
miles distant. With these hilarious new- 
comers was a boy of about thirteen, long 
and lean in build, with restless black eyes 
full of life and mischief, but lips that were 
thin and hard and — old. 

As he sprang from his pony — the little 
Indian horse boys were very busy now, — 
one of the older men called to him: 

“Look out for yourself, Bobby! I’m 
not answering to your father for this lark. 
I told you not to come.” 


BILLY -BOY 


150 

“Bah! Granny!” answered Bobby, 
with an ugly smile on his lips. “Talk like 
that to some kid who hasn’t cut his eye- 
teeth, — not to me, Davy Drum!” 

“You’re sharp as they’re made, I 
know,” answered Dave, gruffly, — “so 
sharp you ain’t safe to handle; and I 
ain’t handling you. The Judge knows 
his own business, I reckon; but if you 
were my boy — well, you wouldn’t have 
the swing you’ve got now, sure!” 

“ I don’t happen to be your boy, so 
you may as well hold your jaw, Davy. 
As for Dad knowing his business, he has 
given me a loose rein too long to haul me 
up now, though he talks of trying it.” 

“Good!” said Dave. “But I’m afraid 
it will take a tough strap to hold you.” 

“He’s got it, he thinks,” answered the 
boy, his face darkening. “There’s a lot of 
fools been croaking about me, and I’m to 
be shipped to the Western Military Insti- 
tute, that’s about as close to State prison 
as respectable boys get. Guardhouse and 
hard-tack if you break the rules.” 

“Good again!” said Dave. “I thought 
the Judge had some head filling under 
his grisly thatch. When are you going?” 


BILLY -BOY 


151 

Bobby lifted his black eyes to his ques- 
tioner’s face, and smiled again his hard, 
cold smile. 

“Never!” he answered briefly. “That’s 
all you need know, Davy, when I’m found 
missing; so don’t ask any more fool 
questions.” 

“You mean you’ll cut and run?” said 
Davy, coolly. “Most too young for that 
game, sonny. Besides, it takes money. ” 

“I’ve got it,” said Bobby, with a flash 
of his black eyes. 

“Where?” asked the other quickly. 

Bobby put his hand in his pocket and 
drew out five dollars in silver. 

Davy burst into a relieved laugh. 

“You can go the limit on that? Blamed 
if I wasn’t afraid you had been holding 
up somebody! I believe you’re equal to 
it. If you can dodge the paternal grip on 
five dollars, you’re even sharper than I 
thought. ” 

“I can make this five dollars fifty,” 
said Bobby; “and I mean to do it.” 

“Oh, you can, eh?” laughed Dave again. 
“Try it!” 

“What will you bet I can’t?” asked 
Bobby, his black eyes sparkling. 


152 


BILLY -BOY 


He had struck a weak point now. Bet- 
ting was something Davy could not 
resist. 

“Well, considering your age and your 
size, and what you are likely to run up 
against at Las Rocas, I think it’s safe to 
say I’ll double the money. But remember: 
if you lose you’ll have to go home quiet 
with me, and cut out all that fool talk 
about breaking away from your daddy.’’ 

“Done!” said Bobby. “That’s a bar- 
gain, then. If I lose I go back with you 
to Dad and his Military Institute; and if 
I make my five dollars fifty, you double 
the money. You’re out, Davy. I’m off 
to win!” 

And, with a mocking wave of his hand, 
the boy darted away. 

Davy looked after him anxiously. 

“If ever there was a little devil born, 
it’s that Bobby Bryce. I oughtn’t to 
have bet with him. But, then, he can’t 
do anything here. A kid like him pitched 
against these card sharks! They’ll skin 
him head to heels. Fifty dollars! Thun- 
deration! I’d be safe betting him five 
hundred; and though it ain’t any of my 
business to tether him. I’ll hold him to 


BILLY-BOY 


153 


his word sure. He goes back to his Dad 
to-night, if I have to lasso him.” 

And, with this determination, honest 
Davy, who was a big, good-humored 
fellow of about twenty-five, dismissed 
Bobby from his mind, and proceeded to 
enjoy himself with more congenial friends. 

With his black eyes sharp and rest- 
less, Bobby made his way through the 
crowd, wondering how and where he 
should first try his luck; for gambling 
and betting were in full swing now; 
and, young as the boy was, he had 
learned many a knavish trick with cards 
that would have befitted a professional 
gamester. He must win, he resolved, 
setting his lips in their old hard lines; 
he must win this evening, at any cost. 
Davy would hold him to his wager, he 
knew; it was a point of honor with such 
rude, simple men. He would double his 
money, if it took his last cent. And he 
would hold Bobby to his word, too, as 
surely. If he should lose, there would be 
no escape from that young giant’s keen 
eye and strong hand. Bobby would be 
taken back to his father without mercy, — 
that indulgent father who had been roused 


154 


BILLY -BOY 


out of his foolish fondness at last, and had 
determined to save and reform his boy. 

Only last week Judge Bryce, who held 
large interests in the Jig Saw Mine, had 
been shocked by the refusal of a prom- 
inent academy to receive his son, whose 
example, the principal declared, was most 
pernicious to boys of his age. And with 
this announcement had come revelations 
of Bobby’s last year’s escapades, that had 
made the fond father grow strong and 
stern. He had brought Bob to the mine 
with him, in order to keep him under 
his eye until he could make final arrange- 
ments for his entrance to the Military 
Institute. But a telegram this morning 
had unexpectedly called the Judge to 
Denver, and he had left Bobby sulky 
but, as he imagined, safe in the mining 
camp until his return. Then had come 
the sudden fancy of the younger men in 
the camp to visit Las Rocas, and Bob’s 
determination to accompany them, — a 
determination which big Davy, who had 
a friendly regard for “the little devil,” 
vainly tried to gainsay. 

So Bobby found himself at Las Rocas 
in the thick of the gaming, clamoring. 


BILLY -BOY 


155 


drinking crowd; his. heart full of angry 
revolt against his father’s will, his keen 
wits alert, his black eyes watchful for 
some chance of escape, however reckless 
or daring that chance might be. With a 
hundred dollars in his pocket, he could 
cut and run — where or how he did 
not stop to think, but away forever 
from the stern discipline of the Military 
Institute. 

He peered into several tents, paused 
irresolutely at several gaming tables. Play 
was running high ; the players looked 
keen and hard-faced as they swept in the 
stakes. Bobby knew that he and his five 
dollars would be “small fry” indeed to 
such sharks as these. Feeling hot and 
dry after his long ride over the hills, he 
turned to the stone water-basin where an 
old Indian squaw was selling some soft 
drinks made of herbs and roots, and dis- 
pensed from big jars of native pottery 
which she kept cooling in the trickling 
spring. 

As Bobby drank from the gourd she 
extended to him, his quick ear caught 
an excited exclamation behind him : 

“Sixty dollars? Sixty? But it is im- 


BILLY -BOY 


^56 

possible! Sixty, little senor? You have 
it for true, for sure?” 

“Right here,” answered another youth- 
ful voice, confidently, — “sixty dollars in 
good hard cash. And you had better take 
it, Pedro, and buckle it safe in that 
leather pouch of yours; for I don’t like 
to trust to your Tio Josh’s velvet pocket.” 

“ Little senor, yes, yes! Put it here safe.” 
The first speaker’s voice trembled with 
surprise and delight. “Sixty dollars! It 
will turn the old grandmother’s head with 
joy. Sixty dollars! Caramba!” 

Bobby turned cautiously to look at 
the speakers: two slight Mexican boys, 
apparently in the gayest of holiday dress. 
The black eyes scornfully took in every 
detail of the silver buttons and broidery. 
Such a monkey rig relegated its wearers 
at once to a class for which this young 
Americano felt only contempt. But these 
two “greasers” had somehow gpt hold of 
sixty dollars. Sixty dollars! 

Bobby took another gourd full of the 
old Indian woman’s root beer, and lingered 
to hear more. 

“Your vendedors couldn’t do me,” the 
second speaker was saying jubilantly. “I 


BILLY-BOY 


157 


understood their English, and heard them 
say what the rugs were worth. And now, 
Pedro, let us go back; for we have a long 
ride before us, and it is getting late.” 

senofy — si!'" replied Pedro, eagerly. 
“We will go home at once.” 

Go home with the sixty dollars they had 
picked up somehow! Sharp-witted Bobby 
Bryce had no chance. Go home, and leave 
him here empty-handed to lose his wager! 
“No,” resolved the black-eyed listener, — 
“no, you don’t!” And, as Pedro and 
Billy turned hurriedly to leave, Bobby 
contrived a collision that knocked the 
gourd from his own hand and sent the 
contents streaming over his neat tweed 
suit. 

“Oh, I beg pardon!” exclaimed Billy, 
in dismay. “I’m awful sorry I turned so 
quick. I didn’t see you.” 

“It doesn’t matter,” said Bob, pleas- 
antly. “It will all brush off, I guess. 
It’s right good stuff. Won’t you try some? 
Trade seems dull with the old lady, and 
I’ll stand the treat.” 

“ No, no!” answered Billy, charmed with 
such good nature. “ I must do the treating, 
after spoiling your clothes, — that is, if 


158 


BILLY -BOY 


it isn't wine,” he added quickly; “I never 
drink anything like wine.” 

“White Ribboner, eh?” said his new 
acquaintance. 

“No,” replied Billy. “We all took the 
pledge, when we were confirmed last 
year, not to taste any strong drink until 
we were twenty- one.” 

There was nothing stronger than sas- 
safras tea in old Miguela's brew, but 
Bobby’s present aim was to prolong the 
conversation and acquaintance. 

“Good!” he said, smiling his hard old 
smile, though his black eyes danced 
youthfully. 

“Then suppose we cut out the old 
woman’s beer and try some of the hot 
chocolate in the booth yonder?” 

It was quite impossible to resist such 
friendly overtures ; so the three boys went 
to the booth in question, and Billy treated 
to hot chocolate, rich and sweet and 
milled to a delicious brown foam; also to 
the crisp little cakes made of pounded 
nuts and honey, which were very good 
indeed. 

And, as everyone knows, there is nothing 
like a treat to promote pleasant social 


BILLY -BOY 


159 


intercourse. Before the first cup of choco- 
late was half finished, Bobby had learned 
that Billy was no “greaser,” but Master 
William Dayton, of Bar Cross Ranch, who, 
dressed up in Tio Jos6’s holiday garments, 
had come to Las Rocas to dispose of old 
Martina’s Indian rugs, for which he had 
just received the amazing sum of sixty 
dollars. And Bobby, with due reservation 
as to his past and future, allowed Billy 
to know that he had come over from 
the Jig Saw Mine, of which his father 
was part owner; and that his name was 
Bob Bryce. 

Bob Bryce? Billy cocked his head 
reflectively at the name. Where had he 
heard it before? Bob Bryce? 

“ It seems as if I have seen you or heard 
of you somewhere,” he said. 

“Oh, no!” answered Bob, hastily. “For 
I never met you or heard of you, I 
am sure. I’ve heard people speak of 
your brother, though. He’s a winner 
sure.” 

“Yes,” said Billy, proudly. “I suppose 
everybody out here knows Jack. There 
are not many fellows like him.” 

“You’re right there,” assented Bobby, 


i6o 


BILLY -BOY 


with a wicked sparkle in his eyes, — “not 
many indeed!” 

“ I suppose he’ll be Senator or Governor, 
or something big, if he stays out here 
long enough,” continued Billy, warming 
up confidentially to this sympathetic 
listener. “That’s what mother is looking^ 
for. He is just like Great-grandfather 
Dayton, who was governor, and whose 
statue is now in the State House 
Square.” 

Bobby, who had heard a good deal about 
Rackety Jack, smiled grimly. Here was 
a “sucker,” indeed, right to his hand. 
But something in the clear, innocent gaze 
of Billy’s brown eyes was rather dis- 
couraging. Bob scarcely knew how to 
tackle a boy who had taken the pledge 
at Confirmation and was blessedly uncon- 
scious of the doings of Rackety Jack. It 
was as if some radiance about Miss Carmel’s 
Billy hurt and dazzled Bob’s evil eye. 
But Pedro, — Pedro was another sort; 
Pedro, who had the sixty dollars buttoned 
in his leather pouch; Pedro, whose eyes 
were dancing and pulses thrilling with all 
the triumph of a new-made millionaire. 
Pedro, once lured away from his boyish 


BILLY -BOY 


i6i 


guardian, could be fooled and fleeced like 
a mountain sheep. 

“And now we had better be off, Pedro,’' 
said Billy, as they finished their chocolate. 

“Oh, don’t be in such a hurry,” inter- 
posed Bob quickly. “You won’t get a 
chance to see anything like this again in 
a hurry. There is talk of cutting it all 
out next year. Have you been to the 
Snake-Charmer’s Cave yet?” 

“The Snake-Charmer’s Cave? No. 
Where is it?” asked Billy. 

“Just over there behind the rocks. The 
Indians say he is fully three hundred 
years old, and his cave stretches miles 
and miles beneath the mountain; and 
when he plays his pipe, the snakes come 
from far and near. He has a whole ring 
of rattlers dancing around him now.” 

“Golly!” exclaimed Billy, roused to 
lively interest in a picture that seemed to 
outclass all the “wild West” stories in 
Dick Fealy’s bookshelf. “ I wouldn’t like 
to miss that. Come, Pedro, let us see the 
Snake-Charmer before we go.” 


i 62 


BILLY -BOY 


XIV. — A Bad Boy’s Game. 

Pedro was rapturously ready to go any- 
where his little senor should suggest, so 
the three boys were soon making their 
way to the Snake-Charmer’s Cave. It lay 
some distance back from the little Indian 
village, and was quite as horrible as any 
one in search of sensations could desire. 

How far the cave stretched into the 
mountains was a matter of legend; all 
that was visible was a deep, dark hollow, 
surrounded by jagged rocks, where the 
Snake-Charmer, a withered old Indian, 
crouched with half-closed eyes, while he 
blew feebly upon a reed pipe that made 
strange, mournful music; and writhing, 
twisting, coiling about him were snakes 
of every size and kind, from the big 
copperhead that wriggled about his neck 
to the shining little adders that gleamed 
around his ankles. 

A breathless crowd was watching the 
hideous sight. Billy had to squeeze in 
with some difficulty before he could look 
down into the Snake-Charmer’s hollow. 


BILLY -BOY 


163 

that was safely guarded by its rude walls 
of rock. One glance was enough; for 
Billy-Boy turned sick and cold with 
horror. He had never before been at close 
quarters with a snake of any kind; and 
this wriggling, writhing mass awoke some 
natural antipathy, of which he had been 
hitherto unconscious. It seemed for a 
moment as if he must reel forward and 
plunge into the horrible depths below him. 

“Let — let me get out of here!” he 
gasped, as, white and dizzy, he tried to 
force his way back through the pressing 
crowd. 

“Too much for you, eh?” said a friendly 
voice, and Billy was conscious of a strong 
supporting hand on his arm. “It’s rather 
stiff for me too, so we’ll get out together.” 

And the speaker, a big blue-eyed giant 
in the easy garb of a miner, half drew, 
half lifted Billy out of the Snake-Charmer’s 
crush into the freshness and freedom of 
the piny ridge beyond. 

“George! you’re white about the gills! 
Better take a swig of this.” And he held 
a pocket flask to the pale-faced boy. 

“No,” said Billy, rallying. “I’m — I’m 
all right now. I never before was so close 


164 


BILLY -BOY 


to anything so horrid. Thank you very 
much for helping me out. I was so dizzy 
I couldn’t see.” 

“Sort of staggered me too, I must say,” 
laughed the big man. “ It’s the old Bible 
story, I reckon. There’s something against 
nature in a snake, and when you get them 
in reels like that — but we won’t talk any 
more about it. Still, I’ve seen humans 
that were a deal worse than snakes, sonny. 
Sure you are all right now?” 

“Oh, yes, yes!” answered Billy. “But 
I’m not going to fool around here any 
longer. I am going home.” 

“Where is ‘home’?” asked his new 
acquaintance. 

“Bar Cross Ranch, on the Coyote,” 
replied Billy. 

“Don’t know your Ranch, for I’m a 
newcomer out here. But you’re a long 
way from the Coyote sure; so you’d better 
make tracks, unless you want night to 
hit you on the trail.” *And, with a pleasant 
nod, Davy (for it was the big man from 
the Jig Saw Mine that had befriended 
Billy) turned away to finish up the sights 
and shows of Las Rocas before dark. 

“He is right,” thought Billy, anxiously. 


BILLY -BOY 165 

“I’ll get Pedro and start for home. We 
ought to have gone an hour ago.” 

But to “get Pedro” was not the simple 
thing the little senor had thought. In 
vain he skirted the crowd still pressing 
about the Snake-Charmer’s Cave, whose 
attractions his companions must surely 
have exhausted by this time; in vain he 
loitered on the return way to Las Rocas, 
scanning every passing group; in vain he 
peered into tent and booth : neither Pedro 
nor Bob Bryce was visible. 

And the revelry was growing wilder 
and noisier every moment. The pulque 
was doing its maddening work. Men were 
swearing, quarrelling, fighting, and the 
day was drawing to a close. Billy, a lone 
little figure, wandered through Las Rocas, 
looking for Pedro, who seemed to have 
been swallowed up by the earth. 

“ He never would have gone off without 
me,” thought Billy, striving to master the 
growing terror in his heart, as he realized 
his utter helplessness if thus abandoned. 
“He couldn’t leave me like this.” 

But, to be fully reassured on this 
point, he betook himself to the temporary 
corral where the little Indian boys were 


BILLY -BOY 


1 66 

guarding the horses. He drew a breath 
of relief. Pretty Marquita and sturdy 
little Diaz stood safely tethered side by 
side. Marquita gave a restless whinny as 
Billy patted her neck. It was time to be 
off, she knew. 

“You have this pony?” asked the 
Indian boy, briefly. 

“No, he won’t!” put in a boyish voice. 
“That’s no Dago’s pony, I know. It’s 
Marquita, from Bar Cross Ranch; and 
you’d better look sharp after her, for she 
is worth more than your whole bunch. 
I don’t know what sort of a fool left her 
tied up here.” 

“/ did,” said Billy, turning eagerly to 
the speaker, a sharp-eyed, freckled-faced 
boy, about his own age. “She is mine. 
I’m Billy Dayton, from Bar Cross Ranch. 

“You are!” gasped Cub Connors (for 
it was that brisk and knowing young 
person who, after a breezy visit to Las 
Rocas, was about to reclaim his own 
“kicker” for a return home). “The kid 
brother I’ve heard about? Gee whillikins! 
who dressed you up in that monkey rig 
and brought you here?” 

Billy passed over the slur on Tio Jose’s 


BILLY -BOY 


167 


holiday garb, and explained his presence 
at Las Rocas. As Cub listened, the in- 
credulous stare on his face vanished into 
a broad grin. 

“Golly!” he said. “Well, you are — I 
won’t say what. And you sold old 
Martina’s rugs? Who’s got the money?” 

“Pedro,” answered Billy; “and I don’t 
know where he is. I’ve lost him in the 
crowd.” 

“What! money and all?” exclaimed 
Cub. “How long ago?” 

“Oh, it must have been more than an 
hour!” was the doleful answer. “We 
went to look at the snake-charmer, and 
that made me sort of sick, and we got 
pushed apart in the crowd. I’ve been 
searching for him everywhere, and I can’t 
find my way . home alone.” 

“Golly! no,” answered Cub. “Don’t 
think of trying. You couldn’t keep that 
trail after dark even if you knew the 
way. And as for your boy, you’re not 
likely to see him either. Like as not some 
sharper has made him dead drunk on 
pulque and skinned him clean. Well, to 
think of a candy kid like you being turned 
loose in a ‘jamboree’ of this kind! The 


i68 


BILLY -BOY 


best thing you can do is to mount 
Marquita right off and ride home with 
me. It’s a safe road and five miles shorter. 
Rooker’s Station, you know.” 

“Oh, I’ve heard of Rooker’s!” replied 
Billy. 

“I bet you have!” said Cub, proudly. 
“ We ain’t any more than ten years old, 
but we’re jumpers, I tell you! Killed 
Buckston and Beryl stone dead already; 
and we’re getting livelier at Rooker’s 
every minute. Store, post office, black- 
smith’s shop, Connors’ Hotel in full 
blast now. Bids out for a church and a 
schoolhouse next spring. Telephone and 
telegraph, — Rooker’s is booming with the 
biggest kind of a boom. You’d better 
sell Marquita and buy a corner lot. I’ve 
got two,” confided Cub. “Made the 
money carrying telegrams for folks like 
yours, that can’t wait for the mails. They 
kept the wires hot about you, sure; and 
they’d want you out of this bunch, I 
know; so you better give up that greaser 
of yours and come home with me.” 

It really seemed the only thing for Billy 
to do; and, with the darkening moun- 
tains frowning about him, Rooker’s, with 


BILLY -BOY 


169 


its hotel and post office, sounded invitingly 
safe and sheltered; so in a few moments 
both boys had mounted their ponies and 
were on their way. 

“All right, are you?” called a cheery 
voice, and Billy recognized his big friend 
of the Snake-Charmer’s Cave striding by. 
“I’ve had about enough of this too, 
sonny. There’s plenty worse creatures 
than snakes loose around here, so I’m off.” 

Billy waved the speaker a friendly 
good-bye and rode on, glad to leave the 
sights and sounds of Las Rocas behind 
him. 

“A deal worse than snakes!” growled 
honest Davy to himself. “ Don’t know 
what I came for, anyhow. The rest of 
the bunch can do what they like, but I’m 
off to the Jig Saw right now.” 

“Not till you pay up!” said a sharp 
young voice beside him. 

“Bobby!” said Dave. “Blamed if I 
didn’t come nigh forgetting the little imp! 
Jump on your pony right quick, for I’m 
going to take you home.” 

“Not much!” answered Bob, his black 
eyes dancing wickedly. “Pan out your 
cash, Dave. I’ve won.” 


BILLY-BOY 


170 

“Won what?” asked Davy, staring. 

“Oh, you can’t go that game on me!” 
said Bobby. “You know very well what, 
Davy Drum. I’ve won fifty dollars, and 
you said you would double the money if 
I got it. Here it is.” And Bob flaunted 
five ten dollar notes under Davy’s aston- 
ished eyes. 

“You scoundrel!” cried the big miner, 
wrathfully. “You’ve been up to some 
devil’s trick. I’ll wager my head!” 

“Pooh, no!” laughed Bob, in wicked 
glee. “ It was dead easy, Davy, — easiest 
thing you ever saw. Found a young fool 
of a greaser loaded with money, who 
thought he knew how to play cards. As 
if I hadn’t been watching the Monte men 
ever since I was born ! I played the sucker 
and let him win everything I had, and 
muddle himself good with pulque; then 
I came down on him and cleaned him out. 
Got a pocketful of loose change besides, 
after paying treat.” 

“Where’s the greaser?” asked Davy, 
breathlessly. “He’ll be after you with a 
knife, boy; and it will serve you right.” 

“Where is he?” mocked Bob. “Asleep 
up there on the rocks. I’ve looked after 


BILLY -BOY 


171 

him all right. He won’t know his head 
from a hole in the ground until sundown, 
and then I’ll be gone. I’ve just stopped 
to collect from you, Davy; so cash out 
your fifty. You ain’t the kind to go back 
on your word. 

“ No, I ain’t,” said Davy, slowly, — 
“not even when it’s about the biggest 
fool word I ever spoke; and there’ll be 
a pair of fools when you get the money, 
I know. There it is!” - The speaker drew 
out a roughly-made wallet and dropped 
five golden eagles into Bobby’s out- 
stretched hand. “If you were any other 
kind of a boy. Bob Bryce, I’d talk to 
you — ^no sky-pilot preaching, but plain, 
straight horse sense; but it’s no use.” 

“ Not a bit 1 ” scoffed Bob, as he pocketed 
the money. “ Don’t waste your breath, 
Davy. You’ll want it all to explain to 
Dad that I’m off for good and all, and he 
needn’t try to look me up; for I’ve got 
the ready money to make my own way. 
He was pulling up a little too tight when 
he planned guardhouse and hard-tack 
for me. So bye-bye, Davy!” the mocking 
voice rang out, as Bobby vanished in the 
crowd. 


172 


BILLY -BOY 


Davy made a stride forward, as if he 
would lay hands on his tormentor; but a 
second thought restrained him. 

“What’s the good?” he muttered, as 
he replaced his sadly depleted wallet in 
his pocket. “ What’s the good of bothering 
with a boy like Bob Bryce? Now, that 
other little chap this evening set me to 
thinking of mother and home and all sorts 
of soft things. I’d held him from trouble 
with a death-grip, he is so young and 
green. But Bob Bryce is hard and cold 
as nails, so let him go.’’ 

Meantime, guided by sharp-eyed Cub, 
Billy-Boy was taking his way over the 
broader and safer trail that led to Rook- 
er’s, where his companion had assured 
him of hospitable welcome for the night. 

“Your brother with his bunch stopped 
there last week,’’ confided Cub, as Kicker 
and Marquita took a level stretch side 
by side. 

“Oh, did he?’’ exclaimed Billy, with 
eager interest in all that pertained to Jack. 

“And they were going it rapid, you 
bet!’’ continued Cub. “When that Sandy 
Nick fastens himself upon a chap he never 


BILLY -BOY 


173 


lets go, — sticks like a horse-leech until he 
has sucked his last cent. Maybe Bar Cross 
can stand it; but Dad says, to his notion, 
your brother was looking mighty sick.” 

“Was he?” broke in Billy, on whom 
Cub Connors’ figurative border speech was 
altogether lost. “Oh, poor, dear old Jack! 
I wish he would stay home and take care 
of himself until he gets real well again. 
It would break mother’s heart if she knew 
that Jack is working himself to death 
out here.” 

“Working — working himself to death?” 
echoed Cub, staring at the anxious Billy. 
“You don’t mean to say that — ” 

Cub paused, with the keen, cutting 
truth on the very tip of his tongue. What 
held it back he couldn’t have explained; 
but something in Billy’s brown eyes made 
him feel as if he held the edge of a knife 
to the throat of a white- wooled lamb. He 
caught back the words that would have 
told Billy the “wild West’s” opinion of 
Rackety Jack, and burst into a laugh that 
made the heights about him ring. 

“Well, you’re a funny boy!” said Billy, 
half indignantly. “I don’t see any joke 
in my brother’s being ill.” 


174 


BILLY -BOY 


“ Nor I,” replied Cub, suddenly sobering, 
as he raised himself in his stirrups and 
glanced around him. “ But I tell you what 
I do see, and that’s the biggest kind 
of a storm coming over that peak there. 
Steady behind me now. We’ll have to 
clip it; for we’ll be blown off this trail like 
two mosquitoes if we don’t get somewhere 
before that black cloud rising up yonder 
bursts.” 


BILLY -BOY 


175 


XV. — On Wild Cat Ledge. 

Yes, indeed, a storm was coming on. 
Even as Cub spoke, Billy could see that 
the sunset gold had darkened into a 
sullen coppery red, and a long streak of 
ragged cloud was waving like a black 
flag over the mountaintop. The evening 
breeze had fled, moaning and sobbing, 
into the hollows; and flocks of birds were 
skimming by to the shelter of the 
pines. 

“Come along!” repeated Cub, jerking 
Marquita’s bridle. “ It's touch-and-go with 
us now to make the open road before 
that storm busts. We’ve got Wild Cat 
Ledge before us yet, — the wust stretch 
of this trail. After me now, quick as 
you can!” 

Neither Billy nor Marquita needed a 
second bidding. Perhaps Marquita, even 
more than her rider, knew the perils of 
that trail in a mountain storm; for every 
muscle under her silken skin seemed to 
quiver as she strained swiftly up the moun- 
tain height that began to rise steeper 


176 


BILLY-BOY 


and rougher before them; while to the 
right the cliff broke away in a succession 
of narrow jagged ridges until it went sud- 
denly down, down, down, to a little stream 
brawling noisily far below. 

“This here’s Wild Cat Ledge,” said 
Cub. “Steady now, and we’ll get over 
all right before the storm busts — halloo! 
What’s that?” 

Both boys paused instinctively, though 
wise Marquita gave a low, impatient 
whinny as Billy pulled her rein. 

“Help!” came a wailing cry from the 
rocks to the right. “Oh, help, help up 
there, whoever you are! For God’s sake 
help, help!” 

Billy’s young face paled under its new 
coat of tan. It was the first cry of human 
agony that had ever reached his ear. 

“There is somebody over there hurt,” 
he said breathlessly. 

Cub edged Kicker to the side of the 
trail, and peered cautiously over; but a 
sudden crash of thunder made horse and 
rider recoil. 

“It’s — it’s a boy!” said Cub, his voice 
a bit shaken. “ He’s caught there on the 
ledge somehow, — toppled over, I guess. 


BILLY -BOY 


177 

He’s killed, or next thing to it. We can’t 
do nothin’ for him. Come on!” 

“Oh, but he’s crying — calling for us 
to help him!” said Billy, tremulously. 
“We can’t leave him here alone.” 

“We can’t do nothin’ else, I tell you,” 
replied Cub, roughly. “ His neck or back’s 
broken, and he’s done for. I ain’t for 
stayin’ here to die with him, if you are. 
The storm is on us. Don’t you hear that? ” 

There was another opening crash from 
the blackness, that by this time had 
widened and risen into great, frowning 
battlements, flashing here and there with 
prisoned fire. 

Billy had always pooh-poohed Dolly’s 
terror of storms, and frisked fearlessly 
out on the porch, while she shut herself 
in a tight -closed room and lit a blessed 
candle. But Billy had never seen a storm 
coming on like this. Even the mountain 
seemed to shudder, as the darkness deep- 
ened over cliff and peak, and the wakening 
roar of a thousand batteries echoed 
through the gorges. But through it all 
came the wild, piercing cry of despair: 

“ Don’t — don’t go away and leave me 
here to die! Give me a lift. ,l can’t hold 


178 


BILLY -BOY 


on much longer. Gne little lift for God’s 
sake!” 

“My, I can’t stand that!” And Billy 
leaped from the quivering Marquita. 

“You blamed little fool!” cried Cub, 
as he grasped the loosened rein. “What 
are you goin’ to do?” 

“Help that fellow down there some- 
how,” answered Billy. 

“And kill yourself!” shouted Cub over 
the crash of the thunder, — “kill yourself, 
you — you young numskull! What’s that 
strange boy to you, — what’s he to you, 
you dunderhead ? ’ ’ 

What indeed? For one moment, with 
those black depths opening before him, 
with the roar of the mountain tempest 
in his ears, with darkness and danger on 
every side, that old world -wise question 
staggered Billy. What was the strange 
boy crying there in agony to him, that he 
should pause in his own peril to help and 
save? 

“Come on!” shouted Cub, who was 
desperately holding on to the quivering 
Marquita’s bridle. “Come on, I say, or 
we’ll all be killed together! Come on, or 
I’ll leave you! I won’t stay on this con- 


BILLY -BOY 


179 


founded ledge another minute for you or 
any other fool-boy born!” 

“Help, help! Oh, for God’s sake, help!” 
wailed the piteous voice. 

“Are you cornin’?” roared Cub, as 
another thunderclap shook the mountain. 
“Are you cornin’, you dunderhead of a 
Dayton?” 

‘'No!*’ panted the dunderhead of a 
Dayton,” his face white but resolute. 
“I’ve got to help. He said for ‘God’s 
sake.’ I’ve got to try and help him if I 
can. ” 

The fierce, wicked word that burst from 
Cub’s lips was lost in another crash of 
thunder, that sent Kicker and his master 
dashing madly over the stony heights of 
Wild Cat, the riderless Marquita speeding 
after them with sure foot and loose bridle, 
quivering in every dainty limb. 

“Help, help! Oh, they’re gone, they’re 
gone!” rose the agonizing cry from the 
rocks below. “They have gone and left 
me here to die!” Then followed an out- 
burst of raging curses dreadful to hear. 

“Stop that!” shouted Billy, shocked 
and indignant at such unbeseeming lan- 
guage in a death hour. “That’s a nice 


i8o 


BILLY -BOY 


way for a fellow in your fix to talk! I 
haven’t left you. I’m coming down to 
help you right now.” 

And Billy proceeded to scramble down 
the twisted vines and roots and jagged 
rocks, that afforded the precarious foot- 
hold of Wild Cat Ledge, to the shelf or 
ridge some fifteen feet below, where, 
huddled in a piteous heap perilously near 
to the jutting edge, lay a moaning figure. 

“What!” exclaimed Billy, as he recog- 
nized the black eyes, the old lips, the 
trig tweed suit of his late companion of 
Las Rocas. “It’s you!” 

“Yes, yes! I give up!” gasped Bob 
Bryce, who could not understand that 
anything but pursuit of his ill-gotten gains 
had brought Billy in such hot reckless 
haste to his side. “I’ll give it all back 
to you if you’ll help me out of this. I’ll 
give it all back, every cent.” 

“Give what back?” asked Billy, in 
bewilderment. 

“The money,” groaned Bob. “The 
money I got from your fool Pedro, — the 
sixty dollars. ” 

“You’ve got Pedro’s sixty dollars?” 

“Yes, yes!” The crashing of another 


BILLY -BOY 


i8i 


thunderbolt deadened Bob’s confession. 

It’s here — ^here in my pocket. You can 
take it all, if you’ll help me, — if you’ll 
pull me back. I’m slipping! O Lord, I’m 
slipping! I’ve been slipping ever since I 
fell. My arm’s broken and I can’t hold 
on. Pull me back. There’s a hole right 
there behind you, under the rocks. I 
tried to wriggle to it, but I can’t. Pull 
me there out of the storm — oh — oh!” 

A blaze of lightning lit the ledge as 
Bobby spoke. It showed Billy that there 
was indeed an opening in the rough wall 
of rock behind him, — a deep recess or 
hollow under an overhanging rock, — a 
wild-cat’s den perhaps, thought the young 
explorer, with a chill striking at his heart. 
But another piteous wail from Bobby 
settled matters. Den or no den, they 
must take shelter there; and, catching 
hold of Bobby’s shoulder, Billy pulled. 
It was a painful operation, no doubt, but 
there was neither time nor space for 
scientific handling. Bob’s shrieks and 
curses rose again in shrill unison with the 
storm. 

“Stop that!” commanded Billy, sternly. 
“Stop that cursing, or I’ll drop you. Bob 


i 82 


BILLY -BOY 


Bryce! Don’t you know you may be 
dead in another moment, and then where 
do you think you’ll go?” 

“Oh, you’ve killed me, — ^you’ve killed 
me!” howled the luckless Bob, as, with 
a final desperate tug, Billy hunched him 
into the sheltering hollow. “ You’ve pulled 
every bone out of place! Oh — ouch — 
ouch! Oh — oh!” 

“I’m sorry!” said Billy. “I couldn’t 
help hurting. It was a tough pull, I must 
say. But you’re safe now, — that is, if 
there isn’t a wild-cat back here. Keep 
quiet and maybe the pain will go.” 

“Oh, no, it won’t — it won’t! I’m 
broken all over. I’ll never walk, — I’ll 
never stand again. Oh, what did I run 
away for? Why did I take this awful 
cut over the mountain? Why did I ride 
that wild Indian pony over this ledge?” 
And another volley of wicked words burst 
from Bobby’s trembling lips. 

“ If you don’t stop that right now. I’ll 
leave you,” said Billy. “Did your horse 
throw you down here?” 

“Oh, yes, yes!” moaned the despairing 
boy. “ He stumbled over the rocks. 
I wanted to get to the railroad quick 


BILLY -BOY 


183 

to-night. I took a short cut the Indian 
boys showed me. I’m killed; I know I’ll 
never get out of this place alive. Oh, 
oh, oh!” The last exclamation rose into a 
piercing shriek as the mountain shook 
from peak to base with an awful thunder- 
clap, the black cloud burst into forked 
fire, the wind leaped forth in mad fury 
from the gorge, and the storm was upon 
them in all its terrors. 

At that first dreadful outburst Billy- 
Boy’s brave young heart seemed to stand 
still; the blood of all his sturdy ancestors 
fairly congealed in his veins; he could not 
think or feel. Crouching in the hollow 
of the rock in this dizzy mountain ledge, 
with the crash and roar of the thunder 
reverberating on every side, the black 
cloud flashing and flaming, the wind 
shrieking madly as it bent and twisted 
and snapped the shuddering trees, the 
rain pouring down in blinding floods, 
Billy-Boy felt his last hour had 
come. 

“Our Father — Hail Mary — Holy Mary!” 
Though Miss Carmel’s rosary was not in 
Tio Jose’s pocket, the blessed words rose 
almost unconsciously to Billy’s lips, min- 


184 


BILLY -BOY 


gling strangely with the despairing cries 
of his companion. 

“Don’t — don’t pray! It frightens me 
to hear you. Don’t — don’t! I can’t die. 
I won’t, — I won’t! I’m afraid! Oh, I 
daren’t die, I’ve been so awful bad! I’m 
afraid. I’m afraid.’’ 

The crash of a thousand batteries echoed 
the words; a sheet of flame lit the black 
depths of the gorge below; but that cry 
of terror and despair pierced the depths 
of Billy’s heart, rousing the young soul, 
trained by tender teaching to meet hours 
like this with faith and trust and love and 
simple boyish charity. 

“You’d better pray too. Bob Bryce. 
You’d better be sorry for all that badness 
pretty quick, — swearing and cursing and 
taking Pedro’s money.’’ 

“Oh, I’ll give it back, — I’ll give it 
back!” wailed Bob. “ I’ll never cheat any 
more, if I get out of this. I’ll never lie 
or steal. I’ll pray, — I’ll pray every 
night.” 

“You’d better pray now!” said Billy. 

“Now I lay me down to sleep — ” began 
Bob, sobbing. 

“That’s no good,” said Billy. “Say an 


BILLY -BOY 185 

act of contrition, — say you’re sorry for 
all your sins; say — ” 

But a crash that seemed to rend the 
mountain asunder broke in upon Billy’s 
spiritual ministrations, as a huge mass 
of rock and earth splintered from the 
cliff went hurling down into the depths 
below. In the madness of his terror, Bob 
tried to spring to his feet; but, with a 
shriek of agony, he fell back — dead, as 
Billy thought, when he caught the fainting 
boy in his trembling arms. 

Dead indeed it seemed, as the rigid 
form slipped from his hold and lay there 
still and silent, all its despairing outcries 
hushed. Dead! And with an awful horror 
numbing his heart, Billy felt he was 
left on Wild Cat Ledge, facing storm 
and darkness and death alone. 


i86 


BILLY -BOY 


XVI. — Rookkr’s Roost. 

Bony Ben mounted Boris, and, although 
the storm was at its height, dashed up 
to the porch of Rooker’s Roost, — a name 
that, despite all its present proprietor’s 
efforts, still clung to the composite of 
eating and lodging house, saloon, post 
office, and general emporium, into which 
the old road house of the stage-coach 
period had rapidly evoluted. 

Ben sprang briskly from his smoking 
horse, and ordered him a double feed and 
rub down; and then paused for a moment 
to shake from his own dripping garments 
their superfluous rainfall before he ven- 
tured into the hospitable shelter of the 
“Roost,” that, with all its newly painted 
and glazed windows, bright and brand- 
new lights, seemed flashing back electric 
defiance at the storm. 

“Come in, man,” said a full, deep voice; 
and burly Tom Connors, the landlord, 
stepped out on the porch to greet the 
newcomer. “Sure we don’t mind a drop 
or two of cold water in here; and betwixt 


BILLY -BOY 


187 


you and me” (Mr. Connors lowered his 
voice to a cautious undertone) “there’s 
some of yer own folks inside that would 
be none the worse for it.” 

“My own folks?” repeated Ben, as he 
stamped the water from his boots. “ Who? ” 

“Who but the boss himself and the 
bunch he travels with, worse luck for the 
decent-born gentleman he is! They all 
came galloping up for shelter about an 
hour ago; and it’s the devil of a night 
they are going to make of it, with the 
whiskey and the cards and the singing" 
and blatherskiting, that they’ve begun 
already. Sure though it’s dollars in me 
own till, I hate to see it,” said burly Tom), 
shaking his head, — “I hate to see it, 
on me soul. The lad’s father was good 
to me when I was a bare-legged gossoon 
minding sheep for him five and twenty 
years ago. I hate to see John Dayton^s 
son going to the dogs like this. Isn’t 
there no one to stop him?” 

“No one,” answered Ben, grimly. “ Far 
as I can see, he’s got the bit in his teeth 
and is at the break-neck gallop downhill. 
And that ain’t the worst of it,” added 
Ben, his sunken eyes flashing. “He’s got 


i88 


BILLY -BOY 


a carriage load of innocents behind him, 
that’s coming in for the smash-up, — 
mother and sister and brother that’s 
believing and trusting and looking to 
him as if he was an angel out of the 
skies. Laws, ye ought to hear that little 
kid brother of his talk!” 

“And ye’ve never opened the lad’s 
eyes?” exclaimed honest Tom. 

“No,” replied Ben. “Every day I 
think I’ll do it, but somehow I can’t. 
The boy is no fool and is bound to catch 
on to things himself. It ain’t up to me 
to throttle him with the truth, that will 
choke hard. And they’re in for a night, 
you say?” (he glanced in at the half -open 
door.) “Who is with him? That blood- 
sucker Sandy Nick?” 

“Aye, Dalton and Bender and that 
black-eyed sharper they call Chips. I’m 
thinking between them they’ll make a 
finish of him to-night. They were here 
last week for a bit, and it was all I could 
do to hold me tongue between me teeth 
and not meddle. It didn’t take Tom 
Connors’ two eyes to see they were play- 
ing hard and fast with the lad, — sending 
the luck up and down to keep him in 


BILLY-BOY 


189 


heart, so they could sweep everything 
at last. He lost a thousand to them if 
he lost a penny last week. And they 
say that big Jim Rainey holds a mortgage 
on Bar Cross Ranch for more than it 
would bring at a forced sale, and he 
means to foreclose before the year is out.” 

“Not on all of it,” said Ben, eagerly, — 
“not on all. There’s two hundred acres 
no mortgage has touched, — wasn’t worth 
a mortgage, they said,” and there was a 
gleam in the speaker’s eye, — “the South- 
west Ridge along the Coyote.” 

“The Southwest Ridge?” echoed Tom. 
“That’s what they were all shouting 
about a bit ago. Rackety Jack was cleaned 
out of ready cash, so they would play 
him for the Southwest Ridge!” 

“They would, eh, — they would, eh?” 
a fierce oath burst from Bony Ben’s lips. 
“Blamed if I don’t break in on that there 
game, if I have to turn my shooting irons 
on the scoundrels! Blamed if I don’t — ” 

“Easy, man, — easy!” interrupted Tom, 
laying a soothing hand on Ben’s arm. 
“ Keep your head. I’ll not have any bloody 
murdering in a decent place like I’m 
making of this. Easy now! Sure what can 


190 


BILLY -BOY 


ye do? What right have the likes of us 
to meddle? — Eh, God have mercy on us, 
what’s that?” 

Both men recoiled instinctively into 
the open doorway as, through the roar 
and blaze and fury of the storm, which 
in their shelter they had disregarded, 
there came a crash that shook the house 
to its foundations and seemed to rend 
earth and heaven asunder. There was a 
moment’s breathless pause; and then, 
while the mountains far and near thundered 
back reverberating echoes, the guests 
of Rooker’s rushed tumultuously out 
on the porch to see what had happened; 
among them Rackety Jack and his crowd; 
the fateful cards still in their trembling 
hands. 

“ A thunderbolt — an earthquake — a land- 
slide somewhere!” 

And while a score or more suggestions 
were voiced by the white-faced speakers, 
a startled cry burst simultaneously from 
Tom Connors and Bony Ben as Kicker 
came dashing madly up through the 
storm, his usually fearless rider crouching 
in terror in his saddle; while behind him 
galloped the riderless Marquita, with 


BILLY -BOY 


191 

arched neck and flying mane, her silken 
coat white with foam. 

With a sudden fear clutching his stout 
heart, Bony Ben leaped from the porch 
and caught his pet filly’s rein, while Cub 
fairly rolled from the saddle to his startled 
father’s feet. 

“Is it dead or alive ye are, ye villain?’’ 
gasped Mr. Connors, picking up the 
breathless boy. 

“I — I don’t know!’’ stammered Cub.- 

Am I dead or alive, Dad?’’ 

“Sure it’s crack-brained he is!’’ cried 
the startled father. “What’s happened 
to you, at all, at all?’’ 

“And who — what brought this filly 
here?” thundered Bony Ben, his eyes a 
very lightning blaze. 

Cub glanced desperately around for a 
moment before he burst into sobbing 
speech : 

“ Oh, I couldn’t help it, — I couldn’t 
help it! The little fool wouldn’t come!” 

“Who — what little fool?” cried Ben, 
an icy premonition flashing upon him as 
he looked at Marquita’s empty saddle. 

“ You — you don’t mean our own kid from 
Bar Cross?” 


192 


BILLY-BOY 


“Yes — yes,” faltered Cub, all his dash 
and spirit gone. “It wasn’t my fault, I 
tell you, Ben Morris! I was bringing him 
home from Las Rocas. I’d have brought 
him home safe and sound, but there was 
some fellow hurt bad on the way, and the 
little fool stopped to help him right in 
the teeth of this storm.” 

“Billy — Billy Dayton — at Las Rocas? 
Billy stopped in this storm ? Good heavens, 
sir!” Ben turned to the young master of 
Bar Cross, who had come out with his 
crowd at the startling crash. “ Do you 
know what the boy means? Billy, your 
little brother, was at Las Rocas, — our own 
little kid, Billy.” 

“ Billy!” repeated Rackety Jack, turning 
his bloodshot eyes on the speaker. “ Eh, 
what is it you say, Ben?” Over the 
flushed, dulled features there broke a 
waking light. “There’s — there’s nothing 
wrong with Billy?” 

“Wrong with him, — wrong?” echoed 
Ben, fiercely. “The kid is out somewhere 
in this storm! Where did you leave him, 
boy? Speak quick!” 

Cub almost collapsed under the iron 
grip laid upon his shoulder. 


BILLY -BOY 


195 


“Wild Cat Ledge,” gasped Cub. “Let 
go of me, Ben Morris! ’Twasn’t my fault. 
I told him I couldn’t stay there and get 
killed too.” 

“Wild Cat Ledge!” shouted a new- 
comer, as he sprang from his horse amid 
the inquiring group. “It was Wild Cat 
Ledge that went a few minutes ago. 
Pretty nigh half of it slid down the gorge. 
Jingo, but it made things shake ! Thought 
I was done for, as I came round the trail; 
but it missed me by half a mile. Give me 
a drink, Connors, — quick!” 

“And the kid was there, — little kid 
Billy!” And as Ben stood speechless and 
shaken his arm was caught in a quick 
nervous grasp. 

“What is it they say?” queried 
Rackety Jack, hoarse-voiced and sobered 
now. “Billy-Boy out — lost in this storm! 
My God, it will be his death!” 

“Aye, it will, — it will!” All the fierce 
pain in Ben’s heart found stern voice. 
“And that death will be at your door and 
mine and all the fools that left him to 
stray, blind and innocent and trusting, 
through a cursed, wicked world like this! 
Stopping to help a fellow that was down, — 


194 


BILLY -BOY 


stopping on Wild Cat Ledge in a killing 
storm to help another fellow that was 
down! Here!” roared Ben to a passing 
boy. “ Bring out that horse of mine quick! 
I’m off, Mr. Dayton, — off to the Wild 
Cat, or what’s left of it; off to find the 
boy, or — or what’s left of him/'' 

“I’m with you!” Rackety Jack, white- 
faced and shaken, broke away from 
his companions amid a chorus of 
protest. 

“You’re drunk. Jack! You’re mad! 
Don’t be a fool. Jack! You’re throwing 
your life away, man!” said Sandy Nick, 
angrily. 

“And if I am, a score of lives like mine 
are not worth that of Billy-Boy!” said 
Jack, hoarsely. “ Stand back, boys! Don’t 
try to stop me! Stand back, Nick! I’m 
neither drunk nor mad now, whatever I 
may have been half an hour ago.” 

“But the Ledge — Wild Cat Ledge is 
down!” roared Sandy Nick, as he realized 
his prey was slipping from him at the 
last moment. “The boy can’t be there 
now. Don’t be a madman. Rackety!” 

“Stand back, I tell you! I’m dangerous 
to-night!” cried Jack, wrenching himself 


BILLY -BOY 


195 


from his friend and comrade’s detaining 
hold, while his face grew ashen with the 
terror Sandy Nick’s words conveyed. “If 
I had not listened to you, Brett, if I had 
not neglected the boy entrusted to my 
love and care, — if I had not been a false, 
weak, cowardly traitor to all that men 
should hold dear, Billy would be safe at 
Bar Cross to-night. Now I go to find him, 
if it costs me my own wretched life. I 
go to find him living or dead. Bring me 
my horse — any horse!” called Jack to the 
boy who had just led out Boris. 

“Here she is, sir!” said Bony Ben. 
“ Here is Marquita herself waiting for you. 
You couldn’t find nothing surer nor safer 
than this same filly. She’s got the sense 
of Inhuman. Off now, my girl!” cheered 
Ben, as Jack leaped on Marquita, who had 
been standing under the projecting roof 
of the porch. “Back where you came 
from! Back to your little master, my 
girl, — back to him, — back!” 

Marquita pricked up her ears at the 
familiar tone, and gave a low, compre- 
hending whinny as she recognized her old 
friend Boris; and then, with the big bay 
beside her, galloped off into the storm. 


196 


BILLY -BOY 


Through blazing lightning and crashing 
thunder the two riders took their way, 
heedless of all peril. Jack held the lead, 
Marquita speeding through the tempest 
like a winged thing, as her rider, driven 
by torturing agonies of grief and remorse, 
urged her on. This was the end, the 
fitting end, of his wild, wicked, sinful 
course! This was the judgment he had 
brought on himself and on all he loved! 
And Billy — trusting, loving little Billy — 
the sinless victim! 

Memories, such as perhaps are the 
torture of lost souls, rose in agonizing 
clearness before the hapless man: Baby 
Billy toddling bravely at his big brother’s 
side; wee white-frocked Billy, racing and 
tumbling to his order; Billy in breefjies, 
venturing on all big boy tricks at his 
command; Billy-Boy, older, swimming, 
riding, skating, and fighting at his hero’s 
word; trusting, true-hearted Billy, speed- 
ing jo3dully over a continent to his love 
and care; honest, love-blinded Billy-Boy, 
seeing no evil in ruined home and reckless 
life; happy little Billy-Boy, from whose 
innocent, unconscious eyes Jack’s own 
lost, ruined youth seemed to look out 


BILLY -BOY 


197 


again in mute reproach, and from whose 
clear gaze he had fled. 

So fierce was the pain rending the 
reckless rider’s heart that for a moment 
Bony Ben’s warning shout was unheard. 

“Look out, sir, — for God’s sake look 
out! The whole Ridge is down!’’ 

It was Marquita, recoiling from the 
mass of crumbling earth and rock before 
her, that roused Jack from his torturing 
thoughts. The fury of the storm was 
past, its work of destruction done. Like 
the deadlier storms of human passion, its 
echoes were dying in broken plaints and 
murmurs, as if Nature were sobbing over 
the ruin she had wrought; though the 
thunder still muttered fitfully, and now 
and then a pale gleam of lightning flashed 
from the scattered clouds. 

“Wild Cat’s gone for sure!’’ said Ben, 
in an awe-struck voice. “No wonder 
the earth and heavens shook! Nothing 
living could stand against this. Poor 
little chap! Stopping to help a fellow 
that was down! He was clean through 
a little man. That’s what he came out 
here for, he said, — to be made a man. 
Lord help him — ’’ 


198 


BILLY -BOY 


“ Hush!” said Jack, his senses quickened 
by agony that even honest-hearted Ben 
could not know. “Don’t you hear some- 
thing below there, to the right?” 

“It’s the wind, sir,” said Bony Ben, 
hopelessly, — “the wind dowm there in the 
gorge. Nothing living could stand against 
this, as you see. There must be ten thou- 
sand tons of rock and earth in this slide.” 

“But to the right there! The cliff 
stands!” cried Jack. 

“And goes straight six hundred feet 
down. The boy couldn’t be there, sir. 
Don’t try it. ’Twill be just throwing 
away your life. Don’t try it! For God’s 
sake think of that mother of yours at 
home!” 

“I am thinking of her and her little 
boy! My God” (the cry was a prayer of 
hope and rapture), “some one is calling 
there below! Billy!” and the brother’s 
voice, in all its old strength and clearness, 
rang out on the dying wail of the storm. 
“Billy-Boy! Billy-Boy! Halloo there, 
Billy-Boy! Billy-Boy!” 

“Here!” came the shrill boyish answer 
from unseen depths. “Down here in a 
hole in the rocks! Down here!” 


BILLY -BOY 


199 


“God bless us! It’s him, sure enough!” 
gasped Bony Ben, springing from his 
saddle. “Leave the horses, sir! We must 
scramble for it. I’ll show you the way. 
We’ll get to the lad somehow. Come on, — 
come on. Call again, to hearten him up, 
sir, — call again!” 

“Billy-Boy! Billy-Boy!” once more 
the old home name woke the echoes of 
the mountain. “We’re coming, Billy-Boy! 
We’re coming to you, Billy-Boy!” 

And, reckless of all peril. Jack and Ben 
scrambled over the still shaking rocks and 
earth, over fallen trees and tangled vines, 
over all the wreck and ruin of Wild Cat 
Ledge, to the standing wall of cliff that 
upbore the terraced ridges that went down 
in steep, unshaken strength to the gorge 
below. 

“Billy-Boy! Billy-Boy!” he called again. 

“Jack! Jack!” 

And it was the young athlete of Holm- 
hurst that swung over in the darkness 
below, leaving Big Ben far behind. It 
was the Jack of old that reached the 
dizzy ledge, black now against the clearing 
sky, and caught to his heart the little 
figure standing there. 


200 


BILLY -BOY 


“Jack! Jack!” cried Billy-Boy, as, with 
a glad little break in his voice, he clasped 
two trembling arms about his hero's neck. 
“Oh, I knew you would come to me! I 
knew you’d find me somehow! I knew 
God would send you to me, my own dear, 
big brother Jack!’’ 


BILLY -BOY 


201 


XVII.— The Life Turn. 

“A letter, Miss!” The rosy -cheeked 
Irish maid appeared smiling at Miss 
Carmel’s door. “And I’m thinking from 
the looks of it, that it’s from that darling 
little boy beyond, God bless his purty 
face!” 

“Billy!” said Miss Carmel, as she took 
the letter eagerly from Norah’s hand. 
“Oh, it is from Billy, — the dear, dear 
boy to write so soon again!” and, dropping 
Mr. Page Ellis’ American beauties that 
she had been arranging in a vase. Miss 
Carmel sank into her rocking-chair, and 
tore open the very fat envelope that 
seemed to promise a lengthy communica- 
tion within. She was not mistaken in 
her hopes. Three sheets of paper heavily 
and hastily scribbled claimed her attention. 
The letter, which was more carefully 
written than the first one, ran thus: 

Dear Miss Carmel: — I am writing 
again, because you are my best friend; 
and I promised that I would not worry 
mamma writing about any troubles, so 


202 


BILLY -BOY 


far away. I will now tell you all that 
has happened, so you will understand how 
things are all rong here. 

Jack and Bony Ben went away on 
bisness, and it was very lonesone at Bar 
Cross; and Pedro, the Mexican boy that 
I told you about, was going to Las Rocas, 
a place away off in the mountains, to 
sell rugs that his grandmother had made, 
and which are fine as Colonel Woodvilles, 
and lace that his sisters make, which is 
beautiful enuff for ladies like you to wear. 
I went along with Pedro, which was rong 
I know now, though I did not think so 
then. Martina, who is Pedro’s grand- 
mother, dressed me up in her dead boy’s 
close, all blue and silver, because it would 
disgrace me she said to go to so fine a 
place in a gray sweater like mine. 

It was a long way, longer than I thought; 
and the road, an Injun trail that we 
took, went over mountains and rocks 
and high places which it makes your 
head dizzy to cross, and got to Las Rocas 
at last. It is an Injun town and they 
have a fair there every year, and it was 
grate Miss Carmel. It beat any fair I 
ever saw. There were Injuns and cow- 


BILLY -BOY 


203 


boys and all sort of men drinking and 
betting and gambolling. And there were 
races and cock-fights, and a snake-charmer 
that made me sick to look at. And 
there was hot chocolate that you would 
like I know, and nut cakes that were 
fine. And we sold old Martina’s rugs 
for 60 dollars. And then we met Bob 
Bryce, who was running away from 
his father, though I did not know it then, 
or I would have looked out for him 
sharply, you bet. 

He got Pedro away from me in the 
crowd, and played cards with him, and 
made him drunk and took his money, and 
left him asleep on the rocks, where I 
could not find him, and it was getting 
late. So Cub Connors, another boy who 
knew Jack, said he would take me home 
with him. We were crossing a very bad 
place called Wild Cat Ledge, when we 
heard some one crying dreadful: “For 
God’s sake help!’’ He was so hurt he 
could not move. And Cub said no, we 
must not stop, for a bad storm was 
coming and we would all be killed. But 
I said when people call for God’s sake 
we must help if we can; and so I stopped 


204 


BILLY -BOY 


and climbed down the rocks to see who 
was there, and it was Bob Bryce, nearly 
all his bones broke, and hurt dreadful. 
I pulled him back in a hole in the rocks, 
which Bony Ben says was likely a wild- 
cat’s den once; and then the storm 
caught us. 

If Dolly could see a storm like that 
she would die, I know. It looked as if 
the end of the world had come sure, — 
everything roaring and blazing and crash- 
ing, and the rocks breaking loose; and 
then Bob Bryce was so scared he tried 
to jump up on his broken bones, and 
fainted, and I thought he was dead and 
that I was left there to die alone. I felt 
bad then sure. Miss Carmel, when I began 
to think I would never see home again 
or mother or you or Dolly or the dogs, 
and nobody would know where I was 
when I blew off the Ivedge into the 
river below. I did feel bad, you bet! I 
tried to think of all the good things you 
told us, and that I had not been bad 
like Bob Bryce, and God would take care 
of me even in that dreadful blackness. 
But I don’t think any boy could die 
real happy on Wild Cat Ledge. I just 


BILLY -BOY 


205 


kept praying, and crying that God and 
the Blessed Virgin would let Jack know 
where I was; for Jack would come and 
save me I knew. And when I was crying 
and praying loudest, I heard some one 
calling: “Billy-Boy! Billy-Boy!” I’ll 

never forget how good it sounded, — 
“Billy -Boy! Billy - Boy !”— through all 
that dreadful blackness and storm. For 
it was Jack true indeed. Cub Connors 
had told him where I was, and he came 
jumping, swinging over the rocks just 
like he used to swing and jump at home; 
and he caught me tight in his arms, and 
most cried over me he was so glad. 

Then Bony Ben came too, and they 
found Bob Bryce was not real dead, but 
only fainting; and Ben poured whisky 
in his mouth and brought him back to 
life. And we waited a while longer until 
the moon came up, so we could see, and 
then Jack climbed up to where Marquita 
was waiting for him. And Bony Ben 
lifted Bob Bryce, who could not move 
himself, on Boris, and we started to a 
cabin of an old hunter that Ben knew, 
and we stopped until morning, when Jack 
and I rode back to Bar Cross Ranch. And 


2o6 


BILLY -BOY 


Ben took Bob to Rooker’s, and sent for 
his father to forgive him and take him 
home. 

But by the time we got to Bar Cross 
Jack’s head was aching so he could scarcely 
see, and he had a high fever and had to 
go to bed, where he has staid ever since. 
And he don’t know me or anybody, but 
talks about flushes and antes and jack- 
pots, and all sorts of queer things I don’t 
understand. But I do understand when 
he cries out: “Don’t let mother know. 
I’ll make all things rite yet. Don’t let 
mother know.” And then he calls you 
in low whispers like he was saying his 
prayers : ‘ ‘ Carmel ! Carmel ! Carmel ! ’ ’ 
And he says something about your being 
lost forever, which is only a dream of 
course, for you are not lost at all. But 
I almost cry when I hear him, it sounds 
so sad. I wish I could tell all this to 
mamma, but I promised Jack I wouldn’t; 
but if you think she ought to know, you 
tell her all this yourself, so I can keep 
my word still true. 

Your affectionate friend, 

Bii,i,y. 

Miss Carmel’s sweet face had grown 


BILLY -BOY 


207 


whiter and whiter as she read on. When 
she reached the end of Billy’s letter she 
was trembling like a frightened dove. 
But Billy’s mother must know indeed, 
and Miss Carmel’s tender heart ached 
with redoubled pain as she realized the 
shock of anguish and fear this knowledge 
would bring. Miss Carmel herself had 
guessed for long weary months that 
things were “rong,” as Billy said; she 
knew that only something very “rong” 
could have caused Jack to write that 
brief, desperate letter she had received 
a year ago, telling her he was unworthy 
of her love and trust; to forgive and 
forget him. “Forget him!’’ The words 
would have struck a death chill to any 
heart less warm and true ; but Miss 
Carmel still loved and trusted and prayed 
for the Jack of old. 

Now, however, as she took her way 
over the brown hills, through the wood- 
land paths that only a few weeks ago 
were arcades of sunlit green, an icy breath 
of fear seemed to touch the sweet flowers 
of hope and love she had kept abloom 
through all these silent months. The 
dead leaves that lay in drifts about the 


2o8 


BILLY -BOY 


gates of Holmhurst, the bare boughs 
standing stark and stiff against the grey 
stone wall, the withered rose vines clinging 
to the porch, — all added gloom to a 
picture in which life and love and joy 
had no place. 

And Mrs. Dayton, meeting her at the 
door, caught the new look on the white 
strained face. 

“Carmel,” she cried, “you have heard 
something, learned something of my boy — 
my boys, Billy and Jack! My God, what 
has happened?” 

“Nothing yet, dear Mrs. Dayton.” Miss 
Carmel tried vainly to steady her faltering 
voice. “I have just had a long letter 
from Billy, which I think you should 
see. Jack is ill, he writes; and — and — ” 

There was no need to say more. Mrs. 
Dayton had caught the letter from the 
speaker’s hand and was scanning it with 
a mother’s quick comprehension. 

“Jack! Jack! Oh, this means that he is 
ill indeed, — that he is dying! I must go 
to him, — I must go to my boy! Oh, it 
is so far he will die without me! My poor 
boy will die out there alone!” 

“No, no!” Miss Carmel’s sweet voice 


BILLY -BOY 


209 


rang out strong in its returning trust and 
love, as she gathered the trembling, 
sobbing mother in her arms. “He will 
not die alone. I have prayed so long for 
him. God will hear my prayers, I know. 
Dear mother. Jack’s mother, as I have 
held you in my heart and love for his 
sake, let me go with you; for Jack is 
calling me night and day. Let us go 
together to help him and save him.’’ 

These were dark days at Bar Cross, — 
the darkest that Billy-Boy had ever 
known. True, the sun was shining 
brightly as if it never had been clouded. 
Coyote Creek, full-fed by the autumn 
rainfall, was dashing merrily over its 
rocky bed. Old Martina had her sixty 
dollars returned to a cent by Bob Bryce, 
whose father had taken him to a sani- 
tarium, where, done up in a plaster jacket, 
he was being reformed morally and 
physically. Pedro had made his way back 
from Las Rocas, a sadder and wiser boy. 
Jack’s “comrades” had scattered with 
their winnings, as such false friends and 
comrades will, leaving their late com- 
panion in his sore need, with only Billy- 
Boy, Bony Ben, and Daddy to help him 


210 


BILLY -BOY 


in his fight for life. The doctor came and 
went; but it was a long mountain ride 
for him every visit, and there was not a 
nurse, trained or untrained, within a hun- 
dred miles at least. But old Martina had 
hobbled up to the Ranch and taken her 
place by the “senor’s” bedside; and 
Pancha and Wichita had dropped their 
lacework and were moving deftly about 
the sick room, doing her bidding; and 
Chang made teas and broths that no diet 
kitchen could excel; while Bony Ben, 
with an anxious heart, watched night 
and day over all. 

But it was Daddy who took command 
of the darkened chamber in which the 
master of Bar Cross lay burning in the 
deadly grip of a brain fever that nothing 
could break. It was Daddy who knew 
strange secrets of soothing and healing, 
learned in Nature’s own book. It was 
Daddy who, strong in the wisdom gained 
in forest and plain and mountain, would 
not give up even when the doctor 
abandoned hope. 

“ It’s all up I fear,” said that gentle- 
man. “He can’t pull through with a 
temperature like that.” 


BILLY -BOY 


211 


“Don't know nothing about tempers,'* 
said Daddy, grimly; “but I’ll hold on 
while there’s breath. Do you throw up 
your hands?’’ 

“Yes,” replied the doctor. “I can do 
nothing more.” 

“Then stand back and don’t meddle,” 
said Daddy. “I’ll pull him through.” 

And, with Martina as an able second, 
the old man began to “pull.” It was 
heavy pulling; but both Daddy and old 
Martina had already waded far out into 
the River of Death, and did not fear its 
chill. They held on stoutly; though Jack’s 
talking and whispering had stopped, and 
for two days he had lain weak and silent, 
only the burning fever flush on his face, 
the quick, short breathing, the fluttering 
pulse telling that he still lived. 

“Done for, I’m afeard, sonny!” said 
Bony Ben gravely, as one chill evening 
he and Billy turned from the sick room. 
“Just naturally burned out. Don’t you 
folks have a priest or a Padre come 
and do something for chaps in a fix 
like this?” 

“Oh, yes, yes!” said Billy, with a sob 
in his throat. “If — if Jack is dying he 


212 


BILLY -BOY 


ought to have a priest, but there is none 
out here. ” 

“Yes, there is,” said Ben. “There’s an 
old missioner been preaching and praying 
at that lunger’s camp across the mountain. 
I’ll send Dick for him right away.” 

And Dick went galloping over the hills 
to the “lunger’s camp,” and returned 
with the nice white-haired missionary 
who had travelled in the Pullman with 
Billy. But, though Father Francis 
brought the blessings of holy prayer and 
sacramantal unction to the sick man, Jack 
lay dull and unconscious of the sacred 
rites, unaware of the priestly presence. 

“Give me a place to sleep and I will 
wait,” said Father Francis. “Often there 
comes light at the last, — beautiful light. 
We must only pray and wait, my little 
son, pray and wait.” 

“What’s the chances?” asked Bony 
Ben, as he and Daddy went out into the 
deepening twilight. 

“Bad!” said Daddy, hopeless for the 
first time. “If something could rouse 
him, stir his dull heartstrings, he might 
take the life turn yet. But looks now as 
if he were done for, sure.” 


BILLY -BOY 


213 


And so indeed it seemed, as the night 
came on and the chill darkness settled 
around Bar Cross. Father Francis had 
gone to the little room assigned to him. 
Bony Ben was on guard below. Old 
Martina nodded in her dusky corner. 
Daddy kept his steady watch by the 
pillow, now and then wetting the linen 
bandage around the patient’s head, 
moistening the parched lips with the fever 
draught he brewed every morning from 
herbs and roots of his own gathering. He 
was ‘pulling’ still, though against all 
hope; for the wrecked young life seemed 
sinking fast. A grey mist was gathering 
on the wasted face; the pulse was very 
low. Billy-Boy was kneeling by the bed- 
side, praying as Father Francis had told 
him, — praying as he had never prayed 
before in all his young life. He had early 
imbibed a tender devotion to the Blessed 
Virgin, and his golden “Hail Marys” 
could not fail now to win her protection 
and her love. 

“Come, sonny, — come!” Daddy laid 
his shaking hand on the boy’s shoulder. 
“Go to bed. There's no sort of use for 
you to stay here.” 


214 


BILLY -BOY 


“Oh, I must, — I must!” said Billy, 
brokenly. “I can’t leave Jack now. 
There’s no one but me. If mamma were 
here, or — or somebody that loved him. 
O God save him, — save my own dear, 
dear, good, grand brother. Holy Mother, 
bless him and cure him!” 

Billy buried his face on the pillow and 
whispered passionate pleadings from the 
very depths of his innocent heart, heedless 
of all the world beyond the death chamber ; 
deaf to the strange sounds and murmuring 
voices and coming footfalls on hall and 
stair below, until suddenly the door of 
the darkened room opened, and Bony Ben 
ushered in . . . 

Billy looked up and started to his feet, 
thinking surely he was dreaming. 

“Mamma! Miss Carmel!” he cried, 
forgetting for the moment all grief and 
fear and pain as he recognized the dear 
familiar figures. 

“Carmel!” The last clear, glad cry 
seemed to pierce the mists and depths 
into which Jack was sinking. “Carmel!” 
The dimming eyes opened, the parched 
lips echoed the word: “Carmel! Carmel!” 

“Lord!” cried Daddy, starting to his 


BILLY -BOY 


215 


feet as he caught the gasping whisper. 
“It’s the life turn! Hold on to him, lady! 
Grip his hand! Speak to him brave and 
clear! It’s the life or death to him now! 
Hold on to him while you can!” 

“Carmel! Mother! Carmel!” and, as 
soft, warm hands clasped his icy fingers, 
as the music of dear-loved voices reached 
the dull ear, as his mother’s kiss fell upon 
the death damps on his brow. Jack’s 
glazing eyes kindled into wondering light 
and love. Billy-Boy’s prayers were heard. 
Jack had made the “life turn.” 


2i6 


BILLY -BOY 


XVIII. — Our Happy Hero Gets a New 
Name. 

Aethough Jack had taken the “life 
turn,” as Daddy said, it was painfully 
slow pulling back to the safe harbor 
of Health. The long, anxious days 
stretched into weeks, and he still lay 
white and weak and restless, — ^the mere 
wreck of the strong, splendid Jack who 
had left fair Holmhurst three years before. 
For thought and conscience wakened 
with returning life; and even the presence 
of the dear ones ministering so lovingly 
to him, brought tortures of remorse as, 
little by little, the remembrance of his 
wild, reckless career returned to the sick 
man, and he realized the ruin he had 
wrought. He had lost all that his gentle 
mother had entrusted to his keeping; all 
that would have entitled him to ask Miss 
Carmel, whom he had loved so long, to 
be his wife; all that might have made life 
bright and beautiful and blessed. 

But for Billy-Boy, unconscious of any 
threatening evil, these were halcyon days 


BILLY -BOY 


217 


at Bar Cross Ranch. The coming of 
mamma and Miss Carmel had roused all 
the Western and Eastern chivalry that 
lay dormant there, and the Ranch tried 
to do fitting honor to its fair guests, while 
Bony Ben fought off the impending ruin 
that he knew he could not altogether 
avert. 

“It’s bound to come,” he confided to 
Daddy, who still kept professional watch 
on his patient. “I can’t stave things off 
much longer. Land and money and credit 
and everything gone, except that stretch 
of rock and sand, the Southwest Ridge. 
Those sharpers of Brett’s were round yes- 
terday offering fifteen hundred dollars 
for it. Gone back on their first price, as 
such sharpers will when they know a 
fellow is down and out. But sonny has 
got the maps from home that show the 
Curado lead striking right through that 
Ridge; and if we can hold on a while 
all may go right. But blamed if I 
ain’t purty nigh down to the last 
dollar!” 

“And he knows it,” said Daddy, with 
a grim nod to the sick man’s window. 
“That’s what’s keeping him down like a 


2I8 


BILLY -BOY 


stone weight, that all those sweet ladies’ 
love can’t lift, try as they may.” 

But some one besides the “ sweet ladies ” 
happened to be at work even as Daddy 
spoke. It was a pleasant November morn- 
ing, and Billy-Boy had made an early 
start for the banks of the Coyote to fish. 
As he drew out his hook and line he 
noticed a tall stranger leaning against a 
tree watching him. 

“Think you can catch anything?” asked 
the big man, good-humoredly. 

“I’m going to try, sir,” answered Billy. 
“Last week I caught a Friday dinner.” 

“So you’re a Friday fish man?” laughed 
the other. “So am I. Seems to me I’ve 
seen you somewhere before, haven’t I?” 

“Why, yes, sir!” said Billy, staring up 
in the keen strong face. “You’re the 
gentleman I met when I was coming out 
here. I’ve got your name in my pocket.” 

“My name,” echoed the stranger, — 
“in your pocket?” 

“Yes,” replied Billy, diving into that 
receptacle and bringing out the usual 
boyish collection of strings and stones 
and pencils and pennies. “Here it is!” 
And he produced the torn envelope signed 


BILLY -BOY 


219 


James J. Rainey, Grizzly Gulch, Wyoming. 
“You said, sir, I might want a friend away 
out here, and if I did to call on you.” 

“I don’t remember,’’ said the stranger, 
with another laugh. “ But that is my note 
of hand sure, and I’m ready to stand by 
it whenever you want me.” 

“ Oh, I don’t want anything now, thank 
you!’’ said Billy pleasantly, as he baited 
a hook. “Jack is getting well and mother 
and Miss Carmel are at Bar Cross, and 
everything is hunky-dory again.’’ 

“Jack — Bar Cross! Thunderation ! ’’ ex- 
claimed the stranger. “ I do remember 
now! You’re the little Dayton kid that 
told me about his grandfather, and — 
and — ^by George!’’ the speaker burst into 
an odd laugh as his keen eyes rested on 
the rosy young fisherman busy with his 
hook and line. “ So everything is ‘ hunky- 
dory’ with you and — your brother, eh?’’ 

“ Fine ! ’’ answered Billy. “ He has been 
very sick, — came near dying. You see 
I got left on the mountain in the storm 
on Wild Cat Ledge. There was a boy 
hurt very bad there, and I had to help 
him.’’ 

“Do you mean that you were the boy 


220 


BILLY -BOY 


that stood by that young devil, Bob 
Bryce, and came very near being 
killed with him?'' asked Mr. Rainey, 
excitedly. 

“Yes, sir,” answered Billy, simply. 
‘‘And Jack came after me, but he was 
so frightened and worried about me that 
it made him very sick. He wasn’t well 
when I came here: he had the malaria 
dreadful, and looked so yellow and hollow- 
eyed I scarcely knew him. Then he had 
been working hard, too. You see he had 
to work hard for mother and Dolly and 
me; for there was no one else to manage 
things. And it takes a lot of money to 
run a big ranch like Bar Cross. I suppose 
it was all these things together, and then 
my getting left on Wild Cat Ledge, that 
brought on the brain fever. My, Jack had 
it bad! I thought he was going to die, 
sure. He didn’t know me or anybody. 
He didn’t even know Father Francis was 
giving him Extreme Unction — ” 

“Father Francis?” interrupted Mr. Jim 
Rainey. “ You had him? If anybody can 
break the devil's grip, it’s that same old 
priest. He hauled me out of Old Nick’s 
claws half a dozen years ago. And so 


BILLY -BOY 


221 


your brother has had a close shave of it! 
Who pulled him through?” 

“ Hard praying,” answered Billy, simply. 
“ Daddy says it was just hard praying and 
nothing else ; for he had touched the life line 
and was going over. Then mamma got here 
and Miss Carmel, and that roused him.” 

‘‘Oh, it did?” said Mr. Rainey, who 
seemed to find Billy’s story most in- 
teresting. ‘‘And who is Miss Carmel?” 

‘‘My Sunday-school teacher,” said Billy 
“and just the prettiest, sweetest, nicest 
lady in the world. Jack kept calling her 
all the time when he did not know any- 
body else. You see they have been friends 
ever since they were little boy and girl, 
and he knew how good she was. I guess 
he felt if anybody could help him into 
heaven, it would be Miss Carmel. I wrote 
her all about it. I had promised Jack 
not to tell mamma anything that would 
worry her, so I wrote Miss Carmel — there 
she is now!” added Billy. 

And Mr. Rainey was forced to confess 
to himself that his young friend’s descrip- 
tion of his Sunday-school teacher did 
scant justice to the slender, graceful figure 
hurrying down the slope. 


222 


BILLY -BOY 


“Billy,” she began eagerly, heedless of 
the big man who had hastily snatched off 
his hat in the fair presence, — “ O Billy, 
there are two men putting up a red flag 
at the gate, — an ‘auction flag, Billy! Run 
and ask them what it means. Oh, I hope 
there is some mistake — ” 

“There is. Miss,” interposed Mr. Rainey 
quickly, — “there is! Ill see to it at once. 
I have — well — a little claim on some 
grounds in this neighborhood; but my 
men are on the wrong track, as I have 
learned from sonny here, — altogether on 
the wrong track. I am sincerely sorry if 
you have been annoyed by any intruder. 
I will have the flag removed immediately.” 

“Oh” (Miss Carmel’s soft eyes were 
lifted in grateful relief to the stranger’s), 
“if you please at once! Jack — Mr. Dayton 
is to be wheeled to the window to-day, 
and if he should see it — see any sign of a 
sale — ” the sweet voice faltered. 

“ He shall not see it, I promise you. 
Miss,” interposed Mr. Rainey. “I’ll have 
the thing pulled down at once. And if 
you have a foreman or manager, or any- 
body of that sort about the place, I’d like 
a few minutes’ talk with him on business — 


BILLY -BOY 


223 


important business, — business that will 
make any red flag, present or future, quite 
unnecessary and impossible. Maybe you 
will introduce me to this youg lady, 
sonny? ” 

Billy drew the paper from his pocket, 
to be quite sure he was correct before he 
said : 

“Mr. James J. Rainey, of — of Grizzly 
Gulch, — Miss Carmel.” 

“Mr. James J. Rainey?” echoed Miss 
Carmel, who had heard of the multi- 
millionaire even in her Eastern home. 

“Just big Jim Rainey at your service, 
Miss. I've heard that Bar Cross is a little 
strapped just now. It happens to the best 
of us sometimes. I met sonny on the cars 
coming out, and we had a friendly talk 
together. He told me a good deal of family 
history — away back to his grandfather 
and great-grandfather. Grandfathers, to 
say nothing of great-grandfathers, being 
rather uncommon on this side of the Great 
Divide” (Mr. Rainey’s shrewd eyes 
twinkled), “I took him to be rather an 
uncommon boy; and, thinking he might 
need a friend out here — ” 

“You have come to help — to befriend 


224 


BILLY -BOY 


him” (Miss Carmel’s face flashed into 
glad comprehension), — “to — to save Bar 
Cross Ranch.” 

“No, Miss,” was the honest rejoinder. 
“ I came, I must confess, to sell it. That 
lurid banner at your gates was mine; but 
I found sonny with my note of hand in 
his pocket, and big Jim Rainey has never 
gone back on his word or note, and never 
will. So I stand ready to honor Master 
Billy Dayton’s demand for any reasonable 
amount that he or Bar Cross Ranch may 
need just now.” 

“Whoop-hurrah!” shouted Billy, who, 
quite unconscious that he was saving the 
family future, was watching his rod and 
line. “I’ve got him — yes, and he’s a 
buster!” added the young fisherman 
jubilantly, as he hauled in a fluttering 
prize. “Won’t Jack open his eyes when 
he sees what I am bringing home to-day? 
He said it was too late for any luck.” 

“That is where he was mistaken,” 
observed Mr. Rainey. “It’s never too 
late for luck, you can tell your brother 
for me, sonny, — never too late for luck 
with a chap like you.” 

And so indeed it proved; for, after a 


BILLY -BOY 


225 


“few minutes’ business talk’’ with Bony 
Ben, and an inspection of the geography 
game’’ which Dolly had put in mamma’s 
trunk, Mr. James Rainey found that his 
generous offer of help promised to be a 
most profitable venture for all concerned. 
Abundant means were placed at Bony 
Ben’s immediate disposal; all debts and 
obligations were paid off; and, relieved 
of the weight of remorse and despair that 
was crushing his young life. Jack speedily 
regained health and strength ; and by 
Christmas, when mamma and Miss Carmel 
returned home, he was quite the Jack of 
old again. 

Bar Cross Ranch was a busy place that 
winter, though there was no drinking 
or “gambolling’’; no Sandy Nick or 
black-eyed Chip to play friends and com- 
rades; no reckless nights or “mornings 
after’’ for the young master. Mining 
experts, surveyors, assayers, men wise 
in old Dame Nature’s secret ways, came 
and went; old maps were studied, and 
old charts examined, and old leads ex- 
plored. And when the spring came, a 
triumphal telegram went flashing along 
the lines to Holmhurst: 


226 


BILLY -BOY 


“Curado lead rediscovered, as per map. 
New mine, the ‘Billy-Boy,’ to be opened 
at once. Will be home in June.” 

And with the June roses came Jack: a 
stronger, braver, nobler Jack than the 
idol of old; a Jack who had gone through 
the fire and flood of temptation and puri- 
fication, and had come out redeemed. And 
with Jack came Billy-Boy, “expanded” 
beyond Dr. MacVeigh’s wildest hopes, — a 
broad-chested, square-shouldered, ruddy- 
cheeked Billy-Boy, who could sit a bucking 
broncho fearlessly, and shoot a wild bird 
on the wing; a Billy-Boy in heart and 
mind as well as in every one of his growing 
inches, — a coming man. 

And one bright day, when the roses 
were at their sweetest and best, they were 
gathered from near and far to deck St. 
Monica’s little altar; and Miss Carmel’s 
Sunday-school turned out, to the smallest 
tot, in festal array, for the Nuptial Mass 
of Jack and his lovely bride. All Holm- 
hurst was there, of course — excepting Mr. 
Page Ellis, who had gone off to Egypt. 
Dolly was bridesmaid; and Billy-Boy, 
as he deserved, was “best man.” 


BILLY -BOY 


227 


Wreathed with climbing roses and cling- 
ing vines, Bar Cross Ranch stands among 
its guarding cottonwoods ; its velvet lawns 
and blooming hedges sloping down to the 
sparkling waters of the old Coyote, that, 
guided by skilful ways, carries its fruitful 
benediction into the thirsting valleys far 
and near. And like the sunlit waters that 
have brought bloom and beauty into 
barren lands is Bar Cross, in the blessed 
influences that flow from it in ever- 
widening streams as the happy years go by. 

The cheerless, half-ruined old house, 
on which Billy- Boy looked with doubt 
and perplexity half a dozen years ago, 
has spread into a beautiful home, restful 
and tranquil in spite of the ceaseless 
activities pulsing beyond its sheltering 
groves. The “Billy-Boy” Mine is an 
achieved success; the Southwest Ridge 
is a hive of busy life; the mining camp 
is giving w^ay to the mining village; a 
branch railroad has cut its way down to 
Buckston, which is once more on the map. 

Miss (or “Mrs.”) Carmel now has her 
gentle hands and her loving heart full. 
To say nothing of the guests that the 
genial master and amiable mistress gather 


228 


BILLY -BOY 


in their hospitable home, there is the 
little log church in the valley, where 
Father Francis finds his way every other 
week; and every Sunday the gentle lady 
of Bar Cross has her queer mixed school 
of little Pedros and Patsys, Gretchens 
and Noras. There is the little frame 
“Infirmary,” where she is head nurse in 
every sudden need. There is the sewing 
school, where, under her guidance, Pancha 
and Wichita teach all sorts of dainty 
handiwork. 

And she has her older pupils, too. 
Under her gentle influence Bony Ben has 
learned to say with faith and love the 
Beads of his lost Dolores; and Daddy 
went down into the valley of the shadow 
hearing and heeding old Pere Jean’s call: 
“Etienne, Etienne! It is growing late. 
Come home to thy old father, Etienne!” 
And the rough stone cross on the slopes 
of the Coyote bears that name alone : 
“ Etienne. ” 

Pedro, who can rattle off English now 
to match any vendero, is the steadiest of 
house servants; and old Martina rounded 
out her years in peace and pride on the 
wonderful sale of her rugs. Dolly had her 


BILLY -BOY 


229 


four years in Paris; and Billy-Boy is 
going triumphantly through a college 
course, with credit to the mind and 
muscle tried on Wild Cat Ledge. 

Every summer Holmhurst closes its 
doors, and the whole family, including 
Miss van Doran, take the wild, free sweep 
that first tried Billy’s wings, over valley 
and mountain to Bar Cross, where mamma 
sees life widening into wonderful new 
interests, and Miss van Doran’s malarial 
cheeks take on a wintry bloom, and pretty 
Dolly holds the gay court of a Western 
queen; while Billy-Boy finds his story 
strangely reversed. He is now the hero — 
the big boy hero, — whose word is law to 
the chubby four-year-old that toddles 
after him in baby lace and trust; only 
now it is “little Jack’’ and “Unkey 
Billy-Boy.’’ 












$ 


* 



» # 

i 


% 


I 


I 


f 


t 




0 


t 



4 




i 

* 



4 
h 


t 


k 

M 


t 



t 

' ♦ 


I 


1 


I 




t 


* 


i 


' 'r 

' t 

* I I 

• » • 


• 

ir 

l< 

f 1 

■'•i i 

1 

•1 

f*' 

. s 

■' 1 

. ’ 

■‘h ^ 



: Vv 

▼ 

» 

*1/ 



% 


N\M 25 W'2 








